


Continued Sinning

by shinobi93



Series: The Oldest Sins 'verse [2]
Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequels, prequels and other extra material from The Oldest Sins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Idiocy's Not The Only Option

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of extra material that has been written since the original fic, and people were interested in reading it, so here it is, collected in one place for sake of ease.
> 
> Rating/warnings will be pretty similar to the original fic, but I'll post any specific warnings at the start of each piece/chapter. Chapter titles are the titles of each separate piece.
> 
> As with the original, huge thanks to alichay for encouraging me/making me writing most of these. And thank you to the small but loyal following of The Oldest Sins and its spin offs over on Tumblr, you guys make my day.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fix-It Fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it says, this is the fix-it fic for The Oldest Sins, aka 'no I can't just leave it ending like that'. Originally I was going to leave it there, so you can just stop and take that as the ending, but if you'd prefer something happier, read on. It's set about six months after the end of the original fic.
> 
> Warnings for a reference to a death from the end of The Oldest Sins that may or may not have been obvious, references to homophobia, and also more expletive language.

Hal stares down the table and his eyes start to blur. He’s listening carefully to the report being delivered to the assembled group, but his vision refuses to focus. The Thursday morning acquisitions meeting unravels before him, as employees battle to come out on top within the safety of the board room. Some of their barbs are aimed at him, subtly of course because you don’t just insult the director to his face, but directed at him nonetheless. He’s aware that in the six months he’s been running the show, the whispers about his future and his past (they seem to give much less of a fuck about his present) have not quieted, not behind his back. The whole ‘casting off his old self’ thing apparently doesn’t make people believe in his ability to continue to run a company.

Finally, blinking, he can see the room again, no longer tainted with tiredness. He runs information through his head and scribbles down notes as people talk, explaining things as if he hadn’t heard it all before. Those sitting at the table in their business attire and determined looks don’t understand: he lives the company now. When they go home to relax and see their families or friends, he goes home to check his emails and mull over plans and collapse into the bed in his too quiet flat.

Then, silence. Everyone looks at him.

‘Is everybody done?’ They all nod. ‘Same time next week then. Don’t forget about the Matheson deal, I want a full analysis as soon as possible.’

He rises and walks out, his exit meant to impress. Hal performs his role as director like an actor upon a stage, knowing his cues almost automatically by now. The corridors are made for the act. People expect him to have a certain stride, like it makes a difference to how he runs Lancaster King. It’s easy to please them. Today, however, his march falters for a second, as the sound of a name echoes out of an open door. Edward. It’s not anything relevant, just some random employees having a random conversation, but it throws him off.

Back at his office, he takes a pile of files from Karen and smiles in thanks. He wonders if it’s still weird for her, being PA for the guy who caused her previous boss so many problems. She’s nice to him, but always slightly condescending. Many people here are. He assumes his youth and reputation make it difficult for them, even now, to take him entirely seriously. He’d like to point out to them that back in the past, people could become king much younger than he is now and run entire countries. He knows they’d stare at him, wondering if he thinks himself a monarch. The boss isn’t allowed to be flippant.

Once the door is shut and the papers on his desk, he walks across the room and stares angrily at the shiny coffee machine perched on a side table. Some had warned him a director shouldn’t have one in his office, that it didn’t look professional, but he wanted instant caffeine. Since then, it’s been a battle with the fucking thing. Apparently it’s very easy not to notice that it was your flatmate who made the coffee most of the time, and thus leave you with very little ability to do it yourself. He refuses to either look at the instructions or ask for help. Him and the machine will fight it out.

(He’s aware of the symbolism of the fight, him versus his own nagging knowledge that he can’t do everything alone, but it’s not going to stop him, not even when he ends up with boiling water on his shoe and no coffee.)

The rest of the day passes in its usual manic way: meetings, heated discussions, a barrage of emails and calls. There’s no time to think about anything but the company. He likes it that way. By the time he leaves, there’s almost nobody around. Karen left ages ago, knowing by now not to question his work schedule. He takes a taxi home, fiddling with his navy tie as he thinks about the second draft of the contract the Legal department showed him earlier in the day.

His flat is of no reassurance to him. The place has never lost the cold feeling that it had when he moved in six months ago. Nobody else has ever been there, other than him and the weekly cleaner. None of the people who might visit would want to: even Humphrey doesn’t turn up when he’s home from uni. His brother’s better than Philippa though, who doesn’t speak to him any more. Joan claimed it was her being busy with school and her friends when Hal mentioned it, but he doubts that’s the case. Philippa feels betrayed, and not solely on her own behalf.

Hal grabs a box of cold Chinese out of the fridge and starts eating, not even bothering to warm it up. He doesn’t have to act here, so everything is a mess. The fridge is usually empty, there’s paperwork instead of ornaments and all he gets from renting an expensive flat is vast open spaces that remind him that nothing is filling them. The furniture is upmarket but boring, functional in this place of recharging and hiding the imperfections. People aren’t meant to see them, like before they weren’t meant to see the days when he wasn’t a wild party boy but instead sat around watching DVDs and eating takeaway whilst keeping up a stream of commentary. The only person who saw that is someone he’s trying not to think of anymore.

With his classy dinner sorted, he sits on the sofa and looks through the business sections of old newspapers. He could look at them online, but there’s something satisfying about spreading them around and covering every surface in boring debates about what other companies will do next. It’s a good image of his life. He thinks about the sort of paper he used to have to peruse, skimming for articles about himself, and chuckles out loud. What a change, he thinks. Him and Poins thinking up creative insults for anybody involved in the stories; the more personal the attack on Hal, the better the insult. As he imagines his old flatmate shaking with laughter after he’d made a particularly vicious jibe, he sees that his battle is a losing one. Apparently everything reminds him of the damn guy.

This becomes painfully obvious later in the night. He’s finally trying to sleep, lying straight as a ruler on his king size bed and trying to slow his brain down from the speed it has to be running during the day. The bed’s cold. You’d think, he rants in his head, that if you spend a lot of money on a flat and heating and bedclothes and shit, you wouldn’t be fucking cold. He wraps the duvet around himself and automatically thinks back to his clearest memory about being warm in a bed, as if to ward off the cold.

It was a fairly normal night: a bunch of people had ended up staying in their flat, including Doll who had stolen Poins’ room so as to avoid everyone else. Hal had made his usual offer and the two of them had shared his bed. The noticeable differences, however, were the fact that neither were drunk so both had stripped down to a suitable sleeping level of attire (read: underwear) and that at some point during the night, Poins had unconsciously (or so Hal assumed) slipped his arm round his friend’s middle, as if trying to keep him close. Hal had awoken confusedly at some ungodly time in the morning, wondered why he felt so warm and relaxed, and then noticed that they were basically snuggling. His friend was essentially plastered along his back and Hal had no intention of moving, so he’d simply gone back to sleep, trying not to hum in satisfaction like a damn cat.

(It’d been strange when they’d awoken, but not because they were friends who’d snuggled all night: no, this was due to the fact they both knew that they’d both been happy with the arrangement, but neither would say a thing. The whole ritual had happened a number of times, but never as memorably to Hal.)

He gazes into the darkness and wonders if this is the price to pay for being the head of a powerful company: shivering, alone, unable to control anything but the damn company. Suddenly angry at the bed for depressing him, he gathers the duvet around him and returns to the living room, throwing himself down onto the sofa. Lying there, eventually he sleeps, but his dreams are full of the guy he threw away so heartlessly (although maybe his heart didn’t quite agree with the choice) and in the morning he feels unrested and uncertain. This won’t do, so he showers and dresses up in another suit, more armour against the world. He perfects his face into a newer smile, the business-like yet inviting one that prevents employees and rivals from entirely hating him. He’s lost track of how many smiles he has now.

It’s not until he’s at his desk, reading over the morning’s emails and notices, that the decision pops into his mind unbidden. He needs to see Poins. Not just because he’s lonely or because he’s tired of existing solely to turn up at the office each day, but because there’s a space in his life, spaces everywhere that it should have been so obvious how to fill. Six months ago he’d almost had this knowledge, but in the tumult of his father’s death it had slipped away again, back to wherever he’d refused to consider it before.

Now, he thinks, if only it was easy to sort out this suddenly acknowledged hole in his existence. Unfortunately, he’s aware that essentially telling someone to never see or speak to you again and then kicking them out of your shared flat does not bode well for wanting to turn up half a year later and admit that maybe you made a mistake. For starters, he did do it all for a reason. His position isn’t quite so secure that he’s certain even merely talking to one of his old company won’t cause some media furore and backlash for Lancaster King.

Luckily, the phone rings and saves him deciding instantly. It’s a cliché that’s easy to enact when you’re the director of a major company: there’s always people who want your attention. He’s fine until the fifteen minutes in which he’s eating a packaged sandwich for lunch, when his focus drifts from the spreadsheet in front of him to the issue that presented itself that morning. The famous Hal Lancaster (he can’t think of himself as Harry, even though that’s the role he’s playing now) has absolutely no idea how to see his once best friend again. He knows it won’t be difficult to find out where he’s living now (you can’t make someone talk on the phone), but beyond that, he’s stumped. The gamble is terrifying.

-

The paint on the door is flecked with signs of the wood underneath. Hal knows this because he’s been staring at it for the past ten minutes. He snuck in the front door of the building as somebody was leaving, impressive considering he’s not used to having to sneak anywhere anymore, and is now poised, ready to ring the bell. The hall is dark and depressing. He’s glad he changed; this doesn’t feel like the sort of place to be wearing his usual suits. The leather jacket and jeans are at least less formal, if just as expensive. Slowly, he moves his hand over to the doorbell, hovering over it like a jittery insect.

Ding dong. There, it’s done. He can’t breathe, just waits, trying to listen for any sounds of movement from inside. It feels, he thinks, like a noir film, although he’s probably not about to get kidnapped or arrested. Gloomy hall, angled shots: it’d look pretty good, an updated version of one of those films they used to watch at the student film society back at uni, there for free wine and the filthy looks they’d get when they whispered comments to each other. The brain thinks up weird things when panicking.

Strangely suddenly considering he was expecting it, he is now face to face with his ex-flatmate. They gape at each other: Hal presumes Poins is looking at his presence there on his doorstep, whereas he himself is staring at his friend’s attire. He’s wearing a tight t-shirt with an open waistcoat on top, his hair artfully messy and his eyes dark. It looks like he’s going somewhere and suddenly Hal is struck with a pain he doesn’t understand. Maybe he shouldn’t have come after all.

‘What?’ Poins mutters eventually, more incredulous than attacking. His eyes are wide, thrown off guard. Hal tries to work out if the shock’s giving way to pleasure at the sight of him, but he’s unable to tell.

‘I-’ he starts to respond, but he stops, unsure what he was even going to say. All he can see is the guy he left, with flashes of that last argument running riot through his brain.

‘Come in,’ Poins offers, probably not wanting to do this in the doorway. Hal does so, looking round the tiny flat in vague horror. The room’s made of books and a table and chairs and a strange bit of kitchen in the corner like a mockery of their old flat.

‘I just-’ he tries again.

‘Thought you’d turn up?’ The tone’s not incredulous now, but bitter. Hal doesn’t doubt he deserves that. ‘Why?’ No pleasantries, not today.

‘I just wanted to see you.’ Apparently this was the wrong thing to say, he thinks as the other guy shakes in anger, unable to speak for a moment. Once upon a time, he would have dealt with that, or tried to. Now he just waits, dreading whatever words will come next.

‘Isn’t that a nice privilege?’ Poins finally hisses. ‘Just nipping round after six fucking months. You know what’d happen if I tried to do that? I wouldn’t get past the fucking lobby of the offices. Security would throw me out. You, however, precious little prince of everything, can waltz in here like it’s nothing.’

Hal has no words to respond. For once, he can hear the edge in the other guy’s voice, the threat that it might break from anger into utter dejection. Shit, he thinks, I never realised he could sound like that. It may have just become one of his least favourite sounds in the world. Without a defence from Hal, Poins continues.

‘I’m surprised though, I’d have thought it wasn’t safe to turn up. What if the nasty old press should see you here? Then you’d be screwed, surely? Not good for the company.’

‘I don’t care,’ he mutters, but Poins is pacing now, clearly trying to let out his anger in a way that doesn’t involve violence. Hal notices details like a pile of DVDs on the table, all films they used to watch and rewatch together, and clothes balanced on top of stacks of books like alternative furniture. Finally the other guy stops and looks him in the eyes.

‘I don’t want to see you,’ he says, but his look says that he really does, but he can’t, and that ultimately he doesn’t know. Hal can see this because he knows the feeling.

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ he asks instead, changing the subject to avoid the stinging words.

‘Work.’ Hal forms his face into a question. ‘Oh, right. I quit the other place not long after Christmas. Work at Minnie’s now. She’s revitalised the place pretty well, all things considering.’

He tries to take all this in: Poins dressing like the rebel Hal used to be, working at a club in eyeliner and a sardonic grin. Initially, he’d thought about Minnie’s place quite a bit, especially after the news about Jack. The report had seemed too surreal: found unconscious on a street, taken to hospital but gravely injured and didn’t make it. Bad debts, they’d said. Hal didn’t doubt it. He didn’t feel guilty, not even then. It wasn’t his job to sort the old guy out.

‘What d’you do?’

‘Whatever. Quite a lot: bar-tending, accounts, publicity, anything that needs doing. Anyway, I’ve got to go, it’ll already be open.’ Poins looks torn between apologetic and glad.

‘Don’t get any trouble, do you?’ he questions, remembering some of the old clientele and feeling suddenly protective.

‘Some. Mostly people who remember you, though. Normally only the odd punch, so I try to avoid telling Minnie, you know how she is.’

Hal has a sudden urge to hunt all these individuals down and tear them limb from limb. It’s a simpler reaction that dealing with the guilt that these are people with a grudge against him or that he’s not there to stop Poins losing his temper at them. His damn temper.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. It’s nothing near like what he ought to say, but he has no other answer. Poins stares at him.

‘I’ve really got to go. Look,’ he pauses for a moment, ‘I’ll call you.’ 

Suddenly Hal is forced out the door and left in the trail of the other guy racing down the stairs, late for work. He wants to believe those parting words, but he’s not sure. The visit didn’t go as planned and now there’s a new sick feeling in his stomach that he has a terrible feeling is the culmination of all those years of them fussing over each other. All he wanted was to see the guy again.

-

‘Hal?’

‘Why the fuck did you give him a job?’ He shouts down the line. It’s later in the evening and he’s on the phone to Minnie, not caring that she’s probably in the middle of the busiest time of the night. A voice in his head tells him he’s not thinking clearly, that this isn’t fair on her, that he should wait until he’s calmed down, but he can’t, because of course he’s not fucking thinking clearly.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘He’s working at your place - why’d you let him do that? It’s fucking bad for him.’ Hal elaborates, his voice lurking on the edges of a snarl. He’s not doing well today with talking to people for the first time in months without sounding crazy.

‘He needed a job, needed something to do.’ Her voice down the line is defensive, but doesn’t sound annoyed at the treatment she’s getting so far.

‘But it’ll ruin him. He’s clever, he shouldn’t be getting beaten up by thugs too scared to come after me and chatted up by drunk women as he serves drinks,’ he protests.

‘It’s not them you should be worried about,’ Minnie mutters, then seems to realise what she said. 

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It’s nothing, Hal. Listen to me.’ Her tone is commanding, so he waits through her dramatic pause. ‘I kept ringing him, checking how he was doing, and then one call, he says he quit his job, he’s doing nothing, and I wasn’t gonna leave him to sit in some funk, so I offered him a job. He’s the best worker I ever had and now I can keep an eye on him.’

He can see the reason behind her words, hear the implicit accusations that he wasn’t around to help at all, but he still isn’t satisfied.

‘But you’re not. He’s still getting punched by guys and hiding it from you.’

‘And how do you know this?’

‘I went to see him today.’

‘Oh right?’ Her tone is angrier now, although not the sort of rage he’s heard from her before. ‘For the first time in what? Six months? Well done, now you can solve everything. No wonder he looked more fed up than usual when he turned up tonight.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Hal, you’re an idiot. You saw him. He had to go and find a new flat, a new life, when you kicked him out. It didn’t do him well. He’s an idiot too and he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Did you stop for one minute in your new busy life to think about him? He’s the idiot who based his fucking life around you. When you were gone, he had nothing.’

‘He knew I would go,’ Hal whispers, but even he can hear the pain in his voice.

‘Well, he’s an even bigger idiot then, but maybe he deluded himself that it’d be fine. Let me tell you: he’s not. He’s not fine. So if you’re going to turn up on a whim and then disappear again, be warned: I will hunt you down and I will kill you, because that boy does not deserve it.’

He actually flinches. This is the dreaded protective wrath of Minnie, the very same wrath that kicks out customers and flings insults and fights her way through the music scene and the bar scene. It has taken this far into the conversation to unleash such anger, but it’s here now.

‘I wasn’t trying to-’

‘What were you doing, then?’ she asks bluntly.

‘I...I’m not sure.’

‘Well fucking working it out. If you just felt like seeing your old friend one more time, then fine, but don’t see him again. Seriously. I don’t give a shit if your perfect little life’s not going as you planned it. Work out why you came, but let me just point one thing out to you: you rang me. You were so worried you screamed down the phone at me, in fact.’

He thinks he knows what she’s getting at, but he wants to be sure.

‘So?’

‘You’re not that blind. You care about him, work out if that means you want to protect him from being hurt. Because that might be protecting him from you, unless you’re willing to make a few changes.’

It feels like a clichéd speech, the whole ‘protecting him from you’ thing, but Hal knows she’s right. Minnie might seem friendly, but you don’t get her riled up. She’ll tell you the harsh truth then. He agrees and hangs up, because he doesn’t want to chat.

For once, instead of working, he sits down with a glass of scotch and stares at the wall. Possibly, he thinks, their whole dynamic - the two of them watching out for each other, fussing over little things or refraining from doing so - meant more than he realised at the time. He dares to admit that maybe it wasn’t some normal friendship thing like they always maintained. Protectiveness, caring, reassurance: they’re all things friends do, but he wonders how you can tell if you had something more than that and you just didn’t notice. Certainly he’s aware missing lying in bed with the guy possibly suggests something, but it clearly wasn’t ever platonic, for fuck’s sake, so maybe that doesn’t give anything away. The complication of it hurts his head, so he drinks more scotch. Part of him wonders if he can find an easy answer, but he doubts googling ‘how to tell if you were in love with someone or just in a kinda fucked up friendship’ will give him much.

Instead, he sprawls along the sofa and plays back details from the years they knew each other, desperately searching for memories for one that will give him a definite answer. He thinks of every time he got Poins’ comments on an outfit or dragged him out clothes shopping under some claim that he couldn’t go alone. None of it was necessary; he wanted his friend’s opinion, wanted to be told to stop creasing shirts or to bother sorting his hair. Wanted his flatmate to roll up his sleeves or rearrange his tie, whilst sighing dramatically about how terrible it was to have to do so of course. He realises how dependent they were on each other’s attention, even Hal who could command a crowd with a few words.

More scotch. Further back now, back to the Oxford days when the real world wasn’t pressing at their backs. It wasn’t such a delusion there: sex was just something they did, along with drinking and lounging around procrastinating. Both had plenty of acquaintances but not really any close friends before they met; they became gelled together easily, until eventually people put their names together. Hal-and-Poins, always a laugh, guaranteed to drink and joke and have strangely close moments that sometimes freaked others out. They didn’t lose that, they just gave it a bit of spin: flatmate domesticity, just how friends act. Then Hal threw away even that.

Hal puts down his glass, deciding that drinking the whole bottle isn’t the best idea. He’s facing a new problem: if, as he’s starting to think after this drinking session, he does want Poins around - need him around even - then he’s going to have a lot to work out. How the fuck to tell the guy, for starters, and what the hell that means. He’s got to have quick answers about the company and his media image if they’re going to have any conversation about it, but Hal’s starting to be inclined to just say ‘fuck them’ and let his publicist work it out.

He falls asleep once again on the sofa and wakes up to the bleeping of his phone. Sleepily, he throws an arm out to grab the thing. It’s his alarm, but the screen also displays a text he missed during the night. His brain takes a moment to take in the sender.

From: Ed Poins

Still want to talk?

He sends back a hasty Yes, when? and goes off to get ready for work. The company still exists, after all, even with all of this in his head too.

-

The day is normal (i.e. busy) other than for one detail: he spends odd moments texting Poins, trying to find a time when neither of them are working or sleeping to meet. Having somebody outside of work to talk to throughout the day is a bit strange for him, even if the conversation is only practical. After they’ve realised that one of them will have to compromise, Poins says he could get the night off work if Hal’s free. He doesn’t want to seem too pathetically alone, but he still affirms this plan without any hesitation. It’s very likely the other guy will realise what Hal’s life is like the second he steps into his flat.

Around this planning, Hal functions like on every other day. It’s not so much compartmentalising as playing the part he’s used to. Vaguely, he wonders what the good old publicity department would say if they knew who was visiting him that evening. Maybe it’d be alright now. He’s proven he can run the place, at least to some decent extent, so people shouldn’t begrudge him this. Besides, if he took a minute or two to think about it rather than rush around, he’d realise he’s almost aching with the need to see Poins again. That should be a good enough reason.

That night, he leaves the office at a decent time, surprising Karen who’s still preparing to go. He brushes past his brother John in the corridor, exchanging a greeting and nothing else. This is how he sees his family now: Tom and John in the corridor, business as usual, but nothing else. Humphrey’s not around, and with Philippa not talking to him, he doesn’t visit her and Bethany, so doesn’t even see his stepmother. He never guessed it would end up quite like this.

Back at his flat, he tidies all the papers and files into neater piles and hides the scotch bottle. He’s not planning on revealing it took some solitary drinking for him to know what he could even say to the other guy. Once upon a time he didn’t have to think about that at all. His jacket’s off and his tie loosened, but he’s not got round to getting changed when he gets a buzz from the doorman downstairs. Soon, he opens the door to find the reverse of the other evening. Poins stands waiting, wearing a simple t-shirt and skinny jeans that seem a lot more him to Hal. He even smiles when he sees Hal. Hal grins back. The other guy’s smile fades somewhat as he looks around.

‘God, Hal, do you really live here?’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ he replies.

‘It’s depressing. No sign you’re even here other than the paper.’ Poins has no problem being blunt, Hal thinks. They know each other too fucking well.

‘Well, you have your towers of books and stuff, I have, y’know, nothing.’ 

He didn’t meant to make that so desperate sounding, but apparently he’s self-deprecating today.

‘Do you do anything but run the company?’ There’s concern in Poins’ voice, even though the question could seem harsh to an outsider.

‘Not really.’ He shrugs. He wants to say that it’s because he lost the right person to do it with, but he can’t, not yet, maybe not ever if he doesn’t keep his nerve. ‘It’s not so bad.’

‘Sure. Guess I don’t have to worry about only being here so you can show off how great things are now.’ They look at each other and laugh, transported back in time to when that was as natural as anything.

‘Hey, I have...too many copies of the Financial Times. Bet you can’t say that,’ he offers with a smile tinged with sadness. Poins gives him a look Hal can’t fathom, although he gets the feeling it’s evaluating him somehow. He gestures towards the sofa. ‘Sit?’

‘So, how are you?’ Poins asks, sounding suddenly nervous. Hal wonders if they’ll keep slipping between awkward and familiar throughout the conversation.

‘Alright. Well, busy. You?’

‘Oh, you know, okay. As good as you can be when you went to Oxford and now part of your job is wiping tables.’ Hal spots an opening there. He even breaks out the first name for the occasion.

‘Ed, why did you leave your other job?’

‘Just didn’t want to stay.’ Hal doesn’t respond to that, just keeps looking, knowing he’ll keep talking eventually. ‘It was just a pointless job so I had enough money to go out all the time, y’know, but I wasn’t going to actually quit, until Christmas.’

‘What happened?’

Poins looks down at his lap and takes a moment to answer. His voice is quiet.

‘I went to see my family, on Christmas Eve.’ He looks up at Hal, who can see from his face the visit can’t have gone well. He would have guessed that anyway. ‘Thought I’d try. It was...interesting.’

‘Surely they were glad you don’t live with me anymore?’ He hates to bring it up, but it’s true.

‘I’d not spoken to them since, didn’t want my father’s gloating, not when he didn’t understand, but I thought it might be okay. Apparently not. Seems he found out something else he doesn’t like about me.’ Hal tilts his head questioningly. ‘The obvious. Let’s just say I’m surprised the past didn’t call and ask for its homophobic slurs back.’

‘How did he find out?’ 

‘I don’t know, maybe it was the fact I lived with you for two years without having any kind of relationship, or maybe it was my sister telling him that gave it away.’

‘Oh.’ He can see the hurt in his friend’s face: his sister had never been that bad before. Really, none of Poins’ family were intentionally awful, even his prejudiced dad, but their small clever son seemed not to have fitted their plans as they’d wanted. No wonder the two of them got along so well.

‘It’s alright, I walked out eventually, haven’t spoken to any of them since. My mum sent an email full of excuses, but I ignored it. Anyway, that was the last straw. I was fed up of being the lowest in the chain with no hope of anything else, so I quit.’

‘And then Minnie called you?’

‘How d’you know that?’ 

Hal pauses. Slip of the tongue.

‘I might have rung her. After I saw you. And possibly shouted at her a little bit.’

‘What?’ Poins looks shocked.

‘I was worried about you,’ he blurted out. ‘You’re getting attacked by drunks and people angry at me and I can’t protect-’

Hal stops, panics, realises what he’s saying, and worries Poins will get angry with the idea he needs to be protected. Instead, Poins looks, well, Hal would say thoughtful. Then a slight smirk appears on his face.

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘Minnie said that too,’ Hal states, because he’s not sure whether to agree or not. He still feels like he’s walking some thin line between amusing and angering his ex-flatmate.

‘Well, you are. You won’t talk to me for six months but you’ll go nuts at someone because they gave me a job that might cause me occasional harm.’

‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’ As soon as he says the words, he spots the other meaning to them. Minnie’s warning echoes in his brain.

‘I don’t want you to worry about me.’

‘I will anyway.’ He smiles at Poins apologetically, who laughs at him. It’s a sound he’s missed.

‘Am I to guess from this you don’t want to return to the not-speaking thing?’ Hal knows he could take this two ways, serious or light-hearted. He opts for the latter for now.

‘It’d make the worrying less creepy.’

‘Anyway,’ says Poins, clearly picking up on the deflection from seriousness. ‘How are your family doing? John still baying for your position?’ 

It’s Hal’s turn to look down, which is strange because Poins knows, or knew, all about his family.

‘Not so great. As in, I don’t exactly speak to them, other than the odd thing. Philippa won’t even talk to me.’ He looks back up, sees the sadness on his friend’s face.

‘Seriously?’ 

Hal shrugs.

‘I can see why. I stopped being the brother she knew, or tried to. Also I think she was more loyal to you than we’d have guessed. She liked hanging out with both of us.’

‘She asked me if we were together, you know.’ Hal stares at Poins in surprise. He didn’t expect that. ‘That time I took her home, when you had that stupid black eye.’

‘What did you say?’ He’s intrigued how the guy managed to give his sister an answer that satisfied her: she’s always been curious and not scared of keeping asking questions.

‘I said we weren’t, that was just how people act when they live together.’

There’s a pause, a space being crossed for the first time.

‘It’s not though, is it?’ he says, more quietly than before. They’re looking straight at each other, no deflecting glances now. Poins shakes his head.

‘No. But we liked to think it was. Or didn’t realise.’ Hal goes to speak, feels the words get stuck in his throat, but keeps on going regardless.

‘I miss it,’ he says simply. The enormity of his words overwhelms him. He’s admitting that his plan failed, that he couldn’t stop being Hal because there was too much of that life he couldn’t let go of.

‘Me too.’ Poins hesitates. ‘Then again, you might have guessed that, if you’ve spoken to Minnie. She seems to think I’m liable to break down crying in a corner or something.’ Hal laughs hollowly.

‘You’ve seen this place. It shows how well I’m doing. I exchanged just a social life for not one at all.’ Seeing as it’s apparently confessions time, he thinks, he’ll go for the big one. ‘You’re the first person to come here.’

‘What, ever?’ asks Poins, his tone shocked.

‘Yeah, and I’ve lived here six months.’

‘Shit.’

It’s all getting a bit too much, so Hal decides to give them a diversion.

‘Want to eat? I’ll order food.’

Poins agrees and after a strangely reminiscent decision about what type of cuisine to get, dinner is promised to them. Hal alternates between feeling light-headed and giddy that they’re actually doing this again, chatting and getting takeaway, and feeling intensely worried that it will go wrong, that his friend won’t forgive him or has moved on and is just being polite. The food (they opted for chinese) arrives and they dance around each other to sort it out in the kitchen, Poins making remarks on how unused everything is. They eat sitting on the sofa as the table’s covered in files and newspapers, talking more freely about stuff, nothing major but they’re talking at least. It’s weird, Hal thinks, because they’re not worried about referring to the past: maybe because everything feels too similar, yet slightly different. He wonders if it’s because they’ve freely admitted there was something more, before.

Once they’ve finished, they take their plates through and clear up, a little picture of domesticity that doesn’t quite hark back to the past because they weren’t so efficient at cleaning then. Standing in the kitchen and collecting up food tubs to put in the bin, Hal decides to ask the thing that’s been gnawing at his mind. The thing he’s not sure he wants answered.

‘Poins?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Minnie mentioned- well, she vaguely referenced you flirting with people behind the bar and I know I shouldn’t care, but-’ Poins turns to face him.

‘You want to know if I slept with them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You really want to know?’ Hal nods, hesitantly. ‘A couple of guys, yeah. Thought it might help.’

‘Did it?’ Hal asks, but he’s swallowing down jealousy as he gets the two words out. It’s not an emotion he’s used to; he’s now realising this might have been how Poins felt before. Although he never understood it at the time and can barely comprehend it now, he perceives he was saved by the fact his friend couldn’t see anyone past him, or didn’t want to.

‘Not really. Just forced comparison.’

Hal raises his eyebrows. ‘And?’ The other guy hits him, but he’s laughing.

‘You’re a dick. No, better than that,’ he says with comprehension dawning on his face. ‘You’re fucking jealous. You’re jealous of a couple of one night stands, you bastard.’ His grin is huge, his laughter bouncing off the walls.

‘Should I be?’ The words are light, but underneath is the honesty, the bare honesty he’s not used to.

‘Not at all,’ mutters Poins as he steps forward and kisses him. Hal knows all the discussion and the working stuff out is not over, or shouldn’t be, but right now, they’re not going to be talking.

-

When Hal’s alarm goes off, it takes a good minute of reminding himself he’s the director of a major company, one that actually needs his presence, before he bothers to not just go back to sleep. For perhaps the first time in six months, there’s something else so pressingly on his mind that he wishes he didn’t have to care about business prospects and the international market. More accurately, it’s somebody and they’re not so much on his mind as half sprawled across him.

‘Fuck, you’ve got a real job,’ grumbles Poins, not really awake. Hal chuckles, running his hand down the other guy’s back, partly because even before, that was bordering on the line of too intimate.

‘Some of us are slaves to the daily grind.’ He extricates himself from their pile of limbs and goes to shower. Water runs over him as he turns his mind to the company, flicking through his mental list of things he needs to do that day and quite successfully ignoring the panic about what could happen now in his non-work life. Once clean, he walks back out into his room with a towel round his waist and picks out a suit. Poins is still lying in his bed, mostly asleep, but the other guy starts to move as he begins to get dressed. He shakes his head.

‘Stay,’ he urges. ‘Stay as long as you want.’ It means nothing and everything all at once. Poins smiles and stretches out like a cat. Hal can feel himself grinning at the sight as he does up his shirt buttons, slowly assembling the director of Lancaster King. The sense of casting aside the previous night becomes overwhelming and he hates it.

‘There’s no food in,’ he warns, for something to say, something to keep him with one foot in the scene he’s about to leave.

‘I’d expect nothing else,’ Poins mutters back. ‘What’d you do if I went and actually bought stuff for your fridge?’

‘Tell you to stop fussing?’ he retorts.

‘Like you can talk. Face it, we fuss.’ Poins is looking up at Hal with a grin. Before, or even last night, they couldn’t have said that, but now they’ve come to some understanding that they don’t have to pretend quite so much. He’s got to leave, but he knows that doesn’t mean he can’t come back. Not this time. Maybe there is hope.

-

By that evening, Hal is wavering between hope and dejection. He spends the journey home wondering if it was inevitable that they’d still find a way to avoid talking about the truth, whether that’s just how they work or if it means they’re too flawed to do anything other than deflect and lie. During the day he’d thrown aside any thought of that kind, because he had work to do, apart from in the fifteen minute meeting he’d suddenly convened with his head of publicity and the personal publicist it had been decided he needed. Quickly, he had explained that there might be extra work for them and outlined why, keeping everything in the realms of the indefinite, the undecided. It was no time to be cocky. Neither of them had seemed phased, which was a good sign. He knew it was vaguely ridiculous that he had to even talk about it with them, but he’s well aware that his personal life is still of enough of an interest to the press to need to forewarn the people who’ll have to deal with the coverage. If there’s even anything to cover.

He walks along the hallway to his flat and wonders if Poins is still there. It’s unlikely, he tells himself, trying not to add anything about the likelihood of the guy regretting even turning up last night. His question is answered as soon as he walks in and sees a handwritten note on the side, taking pride of place to ensure Hal sees it.

 

Hey idiot, I’ve gone to work but if you feel like coming along to say hi (and it won’t cause a major scandal), you know where I am.

 

P.S. Check the fridge

 

Immediately he does, laughing out loud at the sight of milk and food. It’s not useful stuff for cooking, these are the things Hal likes to eat, and none of them make a real meal.

By the time he’s changed into a more suitable outfit, it’s half eight and he’s on the street cursing the fact that the universe is plotting against him by ensuring there’s no free taxis in sight. He’s wearing a navy shirt over black skinny jeans, like a slightly more mature version of his old look, even though six months isn’t much time to mature. He runs his hands through his hair and thinks back to Poins doing the same, sometimes under the pretense of styling it and sometimes not. Shit, this is all too much, he thinks as he walks down the road towards the nearest tube station because he can’t wait around much more. It’s easier to go places now, with the press not hounding after his every move, because now their speculation is mostly about what he’ll do for the company or whether he’s up to the job.

Back in the cold air, he thinks back to all those old nights, not half as long ago as they feel. A whole different role back then: the wayward son, the wild boy, the friendly guy. He wonders who he is tonight: a foolish twat who shouldn’t have abandoned his best friend, then decided they needed to talk but opted for sleeping together without much of the serious shit. To be fair, they both picked that option. He’s not sad about that.

Eventually, he’s back at the place that helped him to achieve his infamy. The club’s exterior looks nicer than before, although he’s not sure if that’s his memory being faulty. Minnie’s advertising the place as a bar too now, so he actually sees people going in despite the relatively early time. He walks in the front door and tries not to run straight back out. He’s not used to being this nervous.

First he spots Doll behind the bar, serving a customer with a smile, and then the person he’s looking for walks behind her, making some sort of comment that Hal can’t hear. In shock, he notices that Poins is wearing his t-shirt. He can tell this because it’s his stupid ‘I heart NY’ one that he bought the time they went to New York in the summer before their third year at Oxford, the one he can’t get rid of because it reminds him of the damn trip and them being idiots in a city where nobody knew them and kissing at the top of the Empire State Building because they thought it was funny to do so. It’s bright pink and garish and awful, but Poins had dared him to buy it as they attempted to do every stereotypically touristy thing they could think of, so he had.

He’s staring, so he can see the moment Poins spots him, can see the damn smug grin that Hal’s almost certain is hiding the relief that he actually turned up. It’s like he passed a test. A part of his brain notices that the place has been done up a bit and looks much nicer, but that bit is being given much less importance than the part getting him to the bar without tripping even though he’s still not taken his eyes off the other guy.

‘I believe,’ Doll says after he stops at the bar and the pair of them continue to gaze at each other whilst grinning, ‘That was what some might call “a moment”.’

‘That’s a fucking ugly t-shirt,’ Hal remarks casually, ignoring Doll. Poins raises an eyebrow.

‘You think that? The drawer of yours I took it from would beg to differ.’

‘Ah, but we both know who told me to buy it in the first place.’

‘Lucky I did, or I’d have nothing to wear now.’

‘So you could go food shopping for me but didn’t have time to get any of your own clothes?’ 

‘My priorities are skewed, I know. Especially as I had to go to the shop in this bright thing.’

‘Um, guys,’ Doll breaks in, ‘I hate to break this up, but can I ask what the fuck is going on? I mean, last time I heard, you two hadn’t spoken in months and you-’ She points at Hal. ‘-didn’t even frequent this place anymore. Now you sound...well, like you used to, with some extra “about to rip off each other’s clothes”. Care to explain?’

Hal breaks his gaze to look at her expression, which is amused and unexpectedly not very surprised. He arranges his own face into an innocent look, or at least a parody of one.

‘Just visiting.’ She goes off to serve another customer, leaving them with a look that promises she wants to know more.

‘Nice of you to drop by,’ Poins says, entirely ignoring the fact he’s supposed to be working.

‘I had to let you know that I’ve heard of a job you should apply for. Good company, great role in their publicity department, which I hear you might be good at, having some previous knowledge of how it works. They’ll want to interview, but it’s in the bag for sure.’

‘Hal, you’re fussing.’

‘You can’t complain, he who bought all my favourite food today just to make sure I eat.’

‘Minnie needs me.’

‘No, she doesn’t. No one will attack you at this job. Or flirt with you. If they do either I can fire them.’

Hal’s proud of his scheme. It’s a solution to the whole job issue and a declaration that he can combine both running Lancaster King and being, well he’s not quite sure what yet with Poins. Friends is the only term he’s willing to commit to, although even before the word didn’t encompass enough for them. He’s fighting admitting to himself how much he wants this.

‘Fine, I’ll apply for the position at the mysterious company. In the meantime, have you eaten dinner?’

‘Erm...no.’ 

Poins shakes his head dramatically at this.

‘Dear god, you need me around.’

‘And you need me, so it’s fine,’ Hal responds, folding his arms. At that moment, Minnie walks out the back room and spots them.

‘Hal!’ she exclaims, but he can hear the hint of threat in her voice even in that one word.

‘Minnie, good to see you.’ She looks between the two of them, obviously trying to decide what’s going on.

‘Minnie, Hal was just trying to poach me from you with a job offer,’ Poins says, apparently noticing her look too. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

She smiles at him. ‘Edward, you should have a better job than this. And maybe better friends, too.’ 

‘Nope, I think this one’ll have to do. Speaking of him, the idiot’s not eaten, so I don’t suppose you can spare me?’

She pauses, considering. Hal feels like he’s being evaluated. He wonders how much of a grudge she holds against him and whether she fell for Poins’ light tone or can tell this is an important moment.

‘Fine. But only because otherwise that one’d sit at my bar all night stopping you from working anyway.’

Doll butts in. ‘And because she’s happy to see you two together, though she won’t admit it.’

Poins is round the other side of the bar now, grinning up at him.

‘Bye guys,’ Hal sings, turning to leave.

‘So, where’re we eating?’ Poins asks as they walk out, just like before.

‘Somewhere new,’ he suggests. ‘Somewhere we’ve not been before.’

And as they eat lebanese food in a restaurant neither had spotted until they’d nearly walked into it, Hal knows the answer to his conundrum. He was in a kinda fucked up friendship, one where they depended one each other and lied to themselves and both believed it had to end, but he was also in love with the guy. Still is, he thinks, although he’s not going to fucking tell him that right now. They bicker over who’s eating what and drink wine and Hal decides that they’re going to have to get a coffee machine and Poins is going to have to teach him how to use it so he can, for once, make him coffee in return. He can make that compromise.


	2. This is how it feels to take a fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to the fix-it fic, Idiocy's Not The Only Option. Hal and Poins deal with blackmail and their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set some time after the fix it fic.

Hal’s drinking coffee and clicking through his emails when he spots it, and there’s a great deal of effort expending in not spitting his drink at the screen in disbelief. There, languishing on some suspicious-looking email, is the remnant of an old night out, from last year he thinks but he’s not completely certain. He stares at it for at least five minutes trying to decide if Poins bought that scandalously tight t-shirt last May or March (he remembers standing in the flat, forcing out an ‘uh-huh’ when Poins came out of his room and asked if it looked okay, wishing he could go over and do what the photo proves he did later in the night anyway). It’s not an important detail, but it staves off the real fear. The fear of what the fuck he’s going to do.

There, captured not on film but in more modern pixels, is documented proof of that which they’ve hidden for so long. Poins shoving him up against a wall in a darkened club corridor, Hal responding with his hands threaded tightly into Poins’ hair, kissing like there’s nothing else good to do in the universe. Their bodies are arched together and Hal wonders how obvious it is they often ended up in a similar position. The single photo (and there’s only one sent to him, so either they’re hiding more or it was an opportunist snap by someone who didn’t think in calculated terms) is not great quality, but it’s clearly them, so denial’s not an option.

And Hal needs an option. He needs one because the photo comes accompanied by a threat that the sender, little shit that they are, will publish the photo and reveal to the world ‘the sordid past of Hal Lancaster’, if they don’t get a very significant amount of money. His body is clenched, his hand gripping the arm of his chair like it’s the neck of whoever sent the email. It claims to be anonymous, but he assumes someone in the IT department could deal with that if he promised a decent bonus, and anyway, the writer claims to have a position on a major newspaper, which lessens the candidate pool somewhat. That part could be a hoax, though.

Hal would pay them off, submit to the power of the truth and unscrupulous journalists, but there’s no guarantee they won’t do it again, keep wanting more. It’s as if, he thinks, the universe didn’t want to let him see Poins again and had to make up for it, giving him only weeks of peace before another hit. Hal can picture the warmth of sleeping Poins beside him, as he’s been getting used to for the past few weeks, and can feel the mark on his collarbone which it’s very lucky his expensive shirt hides. They’re together, both present and understanding what that means, but also hiding, same as they always have.

The obvious parallel with Jack’s email lurks at the back of his mind as he tries to think what to do, aware that there’s little time in his day for panic along with running his company. Hal can now see the irony of his fear at the email trying to do what he would do himself not much later, but how dare Jack Falstaff try and take that mistake away from him.

Karen, his PA, knocks at the door. That’s right, he has a meeting and a lunch and and a fun afternoon discussing the effect of the world markets on the company. Lancaster King doesn’t wait for him to finish his freak out. Hal straightens his tie with a shaking hand and leaves his office, fighting the urge to go unnecessarily via the publicity department and see Poins at his new job, keeping his head down and pretending he doesn’t live with the director. People chatter for Hal’s attention and he gives cursory replies, his mind too busy trying to balance share prices, terror and the forging of some kind of plan. On the surface, he is the calm and decisive head that the company didn’t quite expect to gain when he took over; underneath, he itches to do something, possibly to find the email’s sender and tear them into shreds. He’s not threatening enough for that, though.

-

_It’s not their usual club and Hal is disorientated, but not showing it. He grins at everyone as normal, but keeps one hand forever checking that Poins is by his side, in that fucking new t-shirt that’s driving him crazy. There’s advantages to new places: less people you know, more safety from being spotted. It’s not like those moments they have, the ones so reminiscent of how they were back in Oxford, are planned, but even spontaneity can be foreseen if you look in the right way. Hal tells himself it’s all part of the image he’s created, but that doesn’t cover the fact that nobody sees them. Hal and Poins, in the corner, with the unspoken secret._

-

With hindsight, Hal knows it’s not hard to see how somebody found them out, even if they found out something different to what he’s now hiding. They lived with the risk, the thrill of possible detection adding to the exhilaration. Such a fucking cliché. Not that this thought changes the current situation. He’s back at his desk, fiddling with an expensive pen he uses to sign contracts and trying to avoid going home, because there he’ll have to tell Poins what has happened. Hal could fake a company emergency, any reason to stay behind and sleep in his office, but he can’t, because he imagines the sight of Poins, waiting around and believing that he’s fucked it up already. Opening the bottle of whisky on the side and letting the burn at the back of his throat remind him that his hope was worthless. Hal can’t cause that.

Back at his flat, he saunters in. Nothing is wrong, nothing at all. ‘Good day?’ he asks Poins, who’s sitting at the table, looking at his laptop with scrunched up eyes. Poins shrugs.

‘Alright. Just trying to reply to this.’ He gestures at the screen. ‘My mum emailed, asking what I’m doing these days.’

Hal’s tempted to warn him not to say anything just yet. Instead, he nods vaguely and takes the unknowing cue.

‘I got an email today,’ he declares, sitting down opposite Poins. ‘Some anonymous account, apparently a journalist, sending me an old photo of us and blackmailing me.’

Poins stares at him, gaping. Hal uses the pause to grab Poins’ laptop and open his own email account. He spins the screen back round and shows Poins the photo.

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah,’ Hal agrees. He twitches, the full force of his worry returning now that he’s admitted what has happened.

‘Fucking hell. How long have they been hoarding that?’

‘For long enough. Until it’d have the best impact.’ Hal knows they were waiting, sneakily plotting when would be the best time to throw a knife into the works of Lancaster King.

‘What’re you gonna do?’ 

Hal’s turn to shrug.

‘Who knows? Pay up, but they mightn’t stop. Hire a private detective, find the sender and hire someone else to beat the shit out of them. Just imagine if it got out.’

Poins turns from facing him and looks at the wall instead. Hal assumes he’s also considering what to do. It’s both of their problem when it comes down to it, although only Hal has a whole fucking company on his shoulders. One wrong move and their worth, his worth, takes a plummeting overnight.

‘Couldn’t you pass it off as part of the whole ‘wild youth’ thing?’ Poins says, his voice quiet and bitter. Hal starts to notice the tension in his body, takes in the folded arms and set jaw. He can’t interpret it though. They’ve always had that issue: know each other far too well but miss out on vital cues. He shakes his head.

‘I can’t weather that. There’ll be uproar and meanwhile, the investors will get nervous and the business partners will scurry off in fear. People know we talk again. The combination will be lethal for my image, they’ll think I’m slipping back.’

Hal begs that Poins won’t ask the obvious next question. Why can’t they just tell everyone about them? It’d solve the issue, it’d justify the picture, it’d save the hiding. However, he doesn’t think he can do it. For once, there’s publicity that Hal Lancaster can’t handle. He’s far too likely to fuck up this thing they have (he’s still not good with thinking ‘relationship’), without the press and the office gossiping. It’d be dangerous for the company, he tells himself. It’s a fine excuse for anything these days.

Instead, Poins leaves the issue. ‘When’s the deadline?’ he asks, then adds, ‘Assuming blackmailing is like it is in films.’ Hal smiles, mostly out of relief.

‘Three days.’

-

The next morning, Hal has a fresh three-piece suit and a new determination to get something done.

‘Karen,’ he says as he approaches his assistant’s desk, ‘do I have time to fit in seeing Steven today?’ Steven is head of publicity and very good at his job: he has successfully stopped the place collapsed under the weight of Hal’s past reputation and he knows what to discuss and what to hush up.

‘You have time this morning, from now until ten thirty.’

‘Email him. Request his presence, say it’s urgent.’ Hal stalks off into his office, ready to make coffee and think about a couple of days ago, back when he wasn’t being blackmailed. Fifteen minutes later, Steven is there, looking inquisitive. Urgent summons from the boss are worth serious interest. Hal starts bluntly, because he’s not quite sure how to say any of this.

‘Do we have a policy about blackmail?’

Steven looks suitably surprised. ‘I don’t know, it’s not really my territory…’

‘I mean, if someone’s blackmailing me, not the company. About something that could relate to your department. Do you know what I should do?’ Hal hates this, the asking for help.

‘You should probably talk to Michelle,’ Steven suggests, looking apprehensive. Michelle is the publicist allotted specifically to Hal: she’s meant to deal with his image, as if he hadn’t been doing that for years already. She’s efficient, but she’s not head of the department, and Hal wants to limit who he tells about this.

‘I’m asking you.’

‘I need to know more, really. The context determines what to do.’

Hal shows him the email, wincing slightly at Steven’s obvious shock. He’s not expecting what Steven says next, though.

‘Can’t you just let them publish it? I mean, we’re pretty good at dealing with your press coverage.’

Hal considers the possibility that people expected this, expected them to have this kind of past, and for a moment wonders if Steven is right. But no, he remembers all the reasons that’s a bad idea: how precarious it will put his image and his power in the company, how much he doesn’t want them digging into that stuff. Fear wrapped up as good business sense.

‘It’s too risky, but you’ve seen how much they’re asking for and I doubt it’ll stop there. They might publish it anyway. Not like I can get a legally binding contract or anything. Blackmail’s dirty.’

‘Speak to a lawyer?’ Steven’s looking more and more like he regrets being in this conversation. Hal laughs.

‘Does it look like something I want to tell lots of people about? Especially considering-’ Hal catches himself, realises what he was about to admit. ‘-that he works here now.’

‘Well, I’ve got no idea then.’

Hal wants to scream at him, demand a magical solution that’ll make everything better, but instead he nods.

‘Fine. Let me know if you think of anything,’ he says curtly. Steven leaves his office and Hal picks up a pen from his desk and hurls it at the wall. It clatters to the floor ineffectually: even that didn’t go quite as planned.

-

_He doesn’t want to be here and he wants another drink and he wants Poins pressed up against him, his hands running down the other guy’s skinny frame. None of these he can have yet though, because he’s here for the rumours, the socialising, the unforgettable smile. The club’s shit: he’s angry at Jack for suggesting it, the bastard not even here to back up his choice. At least it’s busy and loud. People will see him, they’ll remember. Reputations take work to uphold._

-

Poins can’t concentrate. He has a minor press release to edit and half an hour until he can go home. The thought should be comforting, because he got little sleep the night before, but it’ll bring him back to the very thing that prohibited his rest. In fact, everything brings him back to Hal. It’s always been the fucking danger, but apparently he forgot that fear and ran straight back into the mess that Hal claimed wouldn’t be as messy as before. Not promised, because promise suggests the definite. Poins can’t guarantee Hal won’t leave him again, especially not after last night’s conversation.

The fucking blackmailer. They were fine, a little shaky, but it’s new ground and they’re them, so it’s to be expected. Now Hal’s panicking about that fucking photo and Poins is waiting for the point when it’s too risky for the company for them to even be together in secret, as if that wasn’t ridiculous enough. They finally learn to admit what’s between them, in the past and now, and then they mustn’t tell anyone else. He knows he’s got to stop ranting to himself about this and actually finish his work.

The half-hour passes, the press report mostly read through. Poins murmurs a couple of goodbyes and leaves, escaping off into the limbo of the city between the two realms of Hal. He wants a drink, but he doesn’t want to be that person drinking alone in a bar at 6pm, so he buys a bottle of scotch and cuts down an alley to take a long swig. 

How can Hal not see what he’s doing? he thinks bitterly. Not understanding that every one of his actions (or at least the public ones, the ones that count in Hal’s highly publicised world) lead back to him being ashamed of Poins, ashamed of them, a part of his life apparently so low in his priorities that he’ll risk financial loss to stop the chance anybody will find out. More scotch. It was meant to be better, but now Poins is working in the department that makes sure nothing about them gets out, although he’s the only person who knows that. Maybe he should finish that still unsent reply to his mother with the line ‘I fucked it all up again’, he muses as he takes another gulp, puts the bottle under his jacket and goes back to the flat.

-

Hal comes home, head pounding from the stress of the day, and sees the whisky bottle on the table top, its lessened contents telling a story that jolts Hal from all other issues and focuses him in the present moment. Sure enough, sitting on the sofa with a horrible, twisted smile is Poins. Not quite drunk, but not sober either.

‘Knew you’d do this,’ Poins opens, and it cuts into Hal’s heart, because he knew this’d fucking happen. That he’d mess it all up without quite realising it.

‘I’m not-’ Hal tries, but there’s nowhere for that sentence to go.

‘Showed your hand, didn’t you?’ The smirk terrifies Hal: it’s like Poins is angry at someone for stabbing him, but smiling at them whilst the blood drips down his body. Angry at Hal. Angry enough (or intoxicated enough) to confront him. ‘Proved that this -’ Poins gestures at the two of them. ‘-isn’t good enough to fit into the rest of your life. Well, I’m sorry, but I was good enough for you once. I suppose that was back when you were “bad”-’ Airquotes here. ‘-and I was useful for your image.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Hal says quickly, before Poins can continue. ‘I mean, sure, I was playing the rebellious son and you were part of that, but I cared. I still fucking care, you know I do.’

‘I thought I did. Now I don’t know.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re ashamed of us. So terrified of anybody finding out that you’ve forgotten everything else,’ Poins snarls. ‘The blackmailer would be cackling with glee if they knew how much they’ve screwed with you.’

‘It’s not because I don’t care about you,’ Hal tries to argue, but the truth in Poins’ words is hitting him harshly. ‘It’s just the company…’

‘Fuck off. Would it really be so bad for the company? The photo, knowing about us. Would it?’

‘Yes,’ he replies resolutely. Poins argues so much more voraciously when he’s been drinking.

‘No, seriously, think about it,’ Poins commands in a reasoned tone. ‘You’ve made it this far with your old reputation, what can one picture do? Besides, people might think we’re adorable.’

Hal stares in disbelief. Right now, they are at one of the furthest points from adorable: bitter glares, the smell of whisky in the air, falling apart without even trying.

‘What?’ Poins protests at Hal’s spluttering. ‘Adorable’s a fine word to use.’

‘If you’re talking about kittens. Not grown men.’

‘Whatever. Not the point.’ Poins’ face grows more serious, losing the light glint that their digression had caused. ‘You’re making fucking excuses. I can’t do it. I can’t take it again.’

Hal look at him in fear. They mustn’t misunderstand this: Hal can tell it is some crux of importance. They miss these moments usually, drive past without seeing the sign, and that’s how shit gets messed up. ‘Can’t do what?’

‘Live with fucking useless hope again. Convince myself you’ll stay when you won’t. If you can’t do this, you’re too afraid or ashamed of us or whatever, then go, because if you stay and keep hiding and one day you disappear, it’ll fucking kill me.’

This is it. Hal sees it now: the ruin of Edward Poins, a tragedy in three acts. Hopeful in Oxford, delusional as flatmates, the reconciliation at the start of the third act only serving to heighten the unstoppable force of the ending. Alone again, fingers curled around a bottle or worse. Nobody knowing the truth of his fall because Hal wouldn’t let him tell them.

‘I can’t promise I can do a relationship well,’ Hal says. It’s not quite a response to anything. He smiles sheepishly. ‘They’re not one of my areas of expertise.’

Poins shakes his head. ‘That’s not the point. You have to be in this. I don’t want to hide from everyone.’ He pauses, seems to consider his terms carefully. ‘We don’t have to be, you know, properly public or whatever, but it’d be nice to have someone else who knows.’

Hal looks at Poins. Takes in the sight of the only person who’s ever repeatedly forgiven his mistakes, pointed out when he’s being an idiot, given him an importance Hal’s not sure he deserves. Their argument has escalated into a decision far too significant to be having like this, caused by some relic from their messed up past that just happened to turn into blackmail material. He believed he’d have more time in their weird patched up state before it came down to this.

‘I hope you’re ready to deal with your own media coverage,’ Hal says, walking closer. Poins is looking up at him in hopeful apprehension. More quietly, he states simply, ‘I’m in.’

‘What about the blackmail?’

‘We’ll deal with the photo when it comes out.’ Hal grins mischievously. ‘I’ll tell ‘em it was all your idea.’

-

_The club’s a dump and everyone is too sober or too drunk. Poins wants to have a good time, to forget about all those little moments when he wants something more than this. Hal’s being strangely needy tonight, possibly a symptom that he too isn’t feeling sure about the nature of their friendship right now. The neediness reminds Poins of back at uni: those times when Hal would appear at his door just because he wanted to see Poins, check that his friend was still a physical presence in Hal’s life. None of this was spoken, of course; they communicate in gestures the other one may or may not notice. Everyone dances, the lights flash, the repetition continues. Suddenly, Hal grabs his arm and pulls him from the dancefloor. Poins isn’t surprised. His own hand is grasping Hal’s arm before they even reach their chosen dark spot and, in a skillful twist of positions, he pushes Hal against the wall. ‘I needed this,’ gasps Hal as Poins kisses his neck with practised art. Poins responds by kissing more fiercely, because so did he. Every tiny betrayal, every proof that they can’t stay like this forever, fades away in that moment, as it does in each of these moments._

-

The publicity department is already alive with activity when Poins enters the next morning. His acquaintances of the past few weeks are barking down phones, talking hurriedly with each other and typing manically. He’s surprised by how busy it is; he didn’t think he was late, had just had loitered the usual amount of time after Hal before leaving the flat. Once again he didn’t sleep well: Hal’s terror at the blackmail and the prospect of people knowing at them didn’t exactly bode well for his declaration, so Poins couldn’t quite be convinced, but instead lay in the warmth of the bed they’ve been sharing (despite Poins technically having his own room) and wondered if he’d always be trapped in this uncertainty. Everything feels a bit hazy to him as he weaves his way to his desk.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks Briony, who works next to him.

‘Surprise press conference. We know nothing about it, which is, y’know, handy.’ She smiles sarcastically. ‘Who knows what goes on in his head…’ Poins chuckles, ostensibly at her words but really at people making comments about Hal to him. ‘Well, you’re friends, or you were, maybe you know.’ She looks at him questioningly. They’ve all been trying to work out how well he knows Hal now, but all they can gather is that him and Hal do still talk. It’s not a lie.

‘I don’t know,’ Poins offers, before Steven sweeps over to them.

‘Ed, I need a word.’ Poins follows, irrationally panicking he’s going to be fired for being later than everyone else, even though he can blame the company’s director for that fact. Steven leads Poins into his office, then looks at him carefully.

‘Do you know what he’s doing?’ Steven asks directly. Poins can see the worry in Steven’s face: the head of publicity really should know what self-promotion the director might be attempting. He shakes his head. ‘We need something, it’s happening at ten and I want some kind of damage control. It’s only a little press thing, but with the internet and all, it can spread instantly.’

‘He knows what he’s doing,’ Poins points out, but Steven doesn’t look reassured. ‘I guess it could be about…’

‘-the blackmail thing?’

‘How did you-?’

‘He told me, reluctantly, because he wanted help. I assumed he’d told you, but I couldn’t be certain, I didn’t know how much you two talk…’ Steven looks slightly abashed, in the way that everyone’s been when Hal is mentioned around Poins. It’s strange considering Hal runs the company they all work at. ‘I wonder if he’s got a plan,’ Steven muses.

Poins shrugs right as the phone rings. Steven answers it, listens for a moment, affirms something and puts it back down.

‘That was him,’ Steven states, looking no less worried. ‘He’s requested both our presences at the press conference.’ 

They look at each other. It must be the blackmail.

Half an hour later, Poins is standing at the back of the grey conference room, having spent the last minute wondering why nobody decorates conference rooms in nicer colours. It’s surprisingly busy, which makes him suspicious that Hal planned it at least earlier than he let on to the publicity department. He can’t stop his hands shaking: Hal’s invited him to see whether or not he can put last night’s words into action and Poins isn’t sure if even now he can let himself believe that Hal can. Each spark of hope is a little bit more dangerous for him, should everything fall back down again.

Hal walks in: smile, suit, confidence. At least to the casual onlooker. To Poins, however, there’s little clues to suggest that Hal’s not as unruffled as he looks. Hair’s messier than earlier, so Hal’s been running his hands through it nervously. The smile’s just one of his default ones, so it could be hiding anything. His tie is the deep purple one he used to wear at Oxford as a talisman for luck. Six months apart didn’t stop Poins from knowing all of this. Next to him, Steven is tapping away on a tablet, probably preparing emails and statements for any eventuality he can imagine. Journalists fidget in their seats, wanting to get the scoop and get out.

‘Hello everyone,’ Hal starts, leaning one arm on the table casually. ‘You’re probably wondering why you’re here. Before you ask, no, the company’s fine. In fact,’ He leans in conspiratorially, ‘it’s better than fine. But I wanted to say something else this morning. You see, the other day, I got a…how shall I word this…a rather forceful email, with an unearthed picture from my infamous past attached. I’m sure you all know about my past,’ A grin now; Poins still marvels at Hal’s ability to play these people, ‘but this was something new and whoever they were, they were hoping to scare me. Instead, they brought me to my senses about something.’

Everyone’s on the edge of their seats, waiting. Poins, meanwhile, feels light-headed. He’s fighting the urge to call bullshit on the last statement and point out that Hal was fucking terrified, but somehow, he feels this isn’t the situation for doing that.

‘You see,’ continues Hal, ‘trying to hide that photo wouldn’t be a very good message to someone important to me. My boyfriend has put up with a lot,’ Hal pauses, and Poins can feel the whole room’s gasps displacing the air, or maybe that’s just his disorientated head, ‘and he doesn’t deserve to have to hide, or to deal with people after me. That’s my message for everyone: if you have a problem with Lancaster King or with me, you leave Edward Poins out of it, okay?’

Suddenly, Steven is staring at him intently, mouth agape. Nobody else in the room realises he’s there (other than Hal of course, who seems to be pointedly avoiding looking in his direction), but Steven seems to have given up listening to Hal’s closing sentences to look at him in disbelief. Poins can’t hear the words either: he feels numb and a voice in his brain is screaming ‘he actually did it’ too loudly for anything else to permeate through. Eventually, the buzz of chatter breaks through and tells him that the press conference is over, that he needs to move before one of these eagle-eyed journalists recognises him from the (less shocking) photos over the years. Steven, publicity whiz that he is, has already noticed this, as he’s pulling at Poins’ arm insistently.

Once they’re dashing through the corridors and up the stairs (not the lift, too many people), Steven turns and shouts at him, ‘You could’ve warned me!’ Poins is focused on getting somewhere though, so he mutters ‘didn’t know he’d do it’ breathlessly and speeds off.

Karen looks at him curiously as he rounds the corner, frenzied and breathing heavily. She wasn’t there, news can’t spread that quickly, so she probably thinks there some business emergency, Poins realises as he walks past her, taking the open door as a sign that Hal’s back in his office.

He’s right. Hal’s standing leant against his desk, pretending to be casual, but he raises his head and beams at the sight of Poins, who feels privileged to get that one on the list of Hal Lancaster smiles. Elated disbelief, he might name it.

‘You did it,’ he whispers, shutting the door behind himself. ‘You did it and you fucking slipped it into conversation like it wasn’t a big deal.’

‘Couldn’t have them knowing how important it was. But you know, right?’ Poins wants to laugh again, at how ridiculous and inept they are at it all. He nods as Hal steps towards him.

‘What about the photo?’ he asks suddenly.

‘Didn’t you hear the end?’ He shakes his head. ‘I asked them to share one other thing: that whoever it was can publish that photo if they want, because it doesn’t matter. Besides,’ They’re inches away now, back in each other’s orbits like they always end up, ‘they can all get headaches trying to work out our messed up past. We can laugh.’

‘I hope they try and interview Doll and Minnie,’ Poins says, giggling mostly in exhilarated relief. ‘Those two’ll give ‘em a run for their money.’ They laugh, because now it’s alright. For the first time ever, they’re not hiding.


	3. At Oxford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> University prequel to The Oldest Sins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of Hal and Poins' backstory, from Poins' POV. Set before The Oldest Sins - they're 18-21 here, and about 23 in The Oldest Sins.
> 
> No warnings apply, other than perhaps the usual amount of alcohol drinking for these two.

It’s the night before Ed Poins leaves for university and he knows he ought to feel something. Loss or excitement or fear: one of those big concepts that each word itself can scarcely describe. He’s glad to be leaving, but not in a dramatic or desperate way: just a general desire to move on and escape the mundanity that has characterised his life thus far. Sunday dinners spent with his sister texting under the table and his dad ranting about whatever’s annoyed him that week. Hanging out with his friends who are great and all, but there’s a gulf that’s developed since he’s off to Oxford and half of them aren’t going to uni.

He’s ready to lose himself in work and drinking and weird old traditions that he won’t bother trying to explain to people when he comes home. They can be added to the list of things people don’t understand about him. Previously, these tended to be assumed to be down to him being a bit weird: clever, slightly mysterious and just radiating a sense of being slightly different to those his friends were used to. He doesn’t like telling people about himself, not properly.

-

His first term passes, like it does for many others, in a haze of tiredness and socialising. Frantic skim reading of modernist novels coupled with learning not to buy value brand vodka. He doesn’t differentiate himself particularly from anyone else, but finds himself surrounded by a group of friends and acquaintances, none of whom particularly interest him but are decent company for meals and nights out. Like a bad habit, he’s fading back into the same old position he had before, where nobody really knows him at all.

-

It’s just another night, same as the week before and, he assumes, as the one after. Gathered in someone’s room; everybody’s brought bottles and cans and left their good decision making behind. They’re playing Ring of Fire, a complicated game that requires a pack of cards and people to not be drunk enough to forget the rules, and to add to the fun, they keep creating new rules with penalties that he can’t keep track of. The cheap whisky he’s drinking isn’t helping the situation and unsurprisingly, it’s not long before he’s forced to take a forfeit: to run shirtless round the quad outside.

It’s freezing, especially with an exposed torso, but he’s not backing down. The others will be watching out of a window so he jogs through the shadows, feeling disorientated thanks to the icy blast of air mixed with alcohol. All’s going fine until he turns his head and immediately runs straight into something hard.

‘Ouch.’ The something turns out to be someone, a tall, thin guy with a friendly smile. ‘Just going for a nice topless run in the dark?’

‘Playing Ring of Fire,’ he replies. It’s explanation enough.

‘And you’re not very good?’

‘I resent that.’ He’s trying hard not to make his words slur. ‘They’ve added too many rules.’

‘Bet that wouldn’t stop me,’ challenges the other guy, his eyes shining even in the dim light of the quad. It’s an opportunity not to be missed.

‘Join us then.’ A pause.

‘Alright. What’s your name, anyway?’

‘Ed Poins.’ He’s got no idea why he went for the full name: he can’t predict what he’s going to do, even though he’s not even particularly drunk. He blames the mysterious quad loiterer for confusing him.

‘I’m Hal. Where are we going?’

‘This way.’ He gestures towards the right door and leads Hal up the staircase, wondering what on earth he’s doing. Inviting strangers to join the gathering isn’t something he does.

‘So, tell me about yourself,’ Hal says as they walk.

‘Not much to say. I do English, I usually wear a top.’ Hal laughs and he feels wittier than usual, even with the whisky. Maybe it helped. Hal seems to consider something.

‘Does anyone calls you Poins?’

He doesn’t know why he does it, why he flirts with a guy who’s clearly going to be not interested and straight and only there for the promise of alcohol, but maybe it’s the drink or maybe it’s something about how he can’t help but be drawn to him. He looks directly at the other guy and grins.

‘You can.’

-

‘Poins.’ The voice is Hal’s, coming from outside his door, and the vowels in his surname are being dragged out into a whine that’s entirely unnecessary seeing as the other guy hasn’t even knocked yet so can’t complain about the door not being opened.

Poins has been back in Oxford for about an hour. Easter brought nothing but getting annoyed at his family and avoiding his old friends’ questions during the one time they met up. He wasn’t going to try and explain how the most important thing that happened the previous term was meeting some guy who he’s not even sure he’s friends with, although the three texts asking him what time he’d be back and the presence outside his door seems to have settled that by now.

He opens the door, causing the repeated whine of ‘Poins’ to cease. It’s starting to feel more like his name than Ed does, even after all the years of being called the latter. Hal bursts in, all limbs and smile, and throws himself down on the unmade bed.

‘See your unpacking’s going well.’

‘You’re the one who interrupted it,’ he points out. Hal’s face morphs into one of mock hurt and indignation.

‘I just wanted to see you, is that too much to ask?’

He’s not used to having a friend like this: dramatic, exhilarating. Hal’s tendency to flirt and be loudly affectionate with people is another aspect to get used to, although Poins is starting to notice how much of an act this is. Hal likes people, or claims to. All in all, he can’t see why the guy has any interest in being friends with him.

‘Don’t you have someone else to pester?’ he says lightly. He desperately hopes not.

‘No. I’m not leaving. Unpack around me.’

So he does, unpacking not only his stuff but his life too.

-

His head is throbbing and feels like it’s made of both fluff and something very heavy. Everything is confusing and too warm. Poins opens his eyes and stares at his ceiling. A good sign. It’s only when he goes to move that he panics: he can’t sit up. Surely he’s not that hungover, he thinks, then lifts his head enough to look around. The weight preventing his motion is the head of his friend, with a sparkly pink tiara on top of his hair. Oh right, Poins thinks, I remember that now.

Hal is sleeping in what looks like the least comfortable position ever: Poins’ chest as a pillow, his legs supported by the desk chair and the rest of him balancing precariously on the edge of the bed and on thin air. It’s as ridiculous as Hal himself.

He doesn’t want to disturb his friend, so he lays his head back down and thinks back to the night before. It’s only a few weeks into term and soon they’ll have to focus on revising for their first year exams, but for now they can still go out and drink lines of rainbow coloured shots. He knows this happened, because he remembers Hal demanding very loudly that princesses need rainbow things. Snippets of a very drunken conversation about whether he would be Hal’s knight come floating back, although he can’t recall what the eventual conclusion was. If his new pillow status is anything to go by, it could have been yes.

It was a weird night. If there had been some kind of royalty-themed dressing up event, it may have made more sense, but there wasn’t: Hal had just acquired the tiara somehow and refused to take it off. So many people had made comments, but his air of drunken eccentricity seemed to make everybody go along with the whole thing.

This time last term, Poins thinks, he had just met the guy. Now Hal’s asleep on his chest and Poins may have agreed to fight in his name at the next jousting tournament.

-

The start of second year; how time flies. That’s not the biggest change, however. That award goes to the current situation: Poins is half awake, lying in his bed, and so is Hal, with one arm draped across him casually like this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. It is, though, and Poins is considering staying there forever just in case this is the only time it happens. He hadn’t expected any of the evening to go like that and he certainly hadn’t expected Hal to stay over, stretching out beside him and falling asleep on the single bed that is way too small for the both of them. This proximity is perhaps the only thing stopping him from panicking that Hal will never speak to him again now: whilst his friend’s presence is tangible, whilst Poins can feel the movement of his chest as he breathes and the weight of Hal’s arm resting on his side, he knows Hal is still there.

Soon, Hal wakes up too, nuzzling his face into the back of Poins’ neck and bleating ‘Coffee’ pathetically.

‘What do you usually do?’ murmurs Poins with a smile. He finds it slightly easier to remain calm now Hal’s awake and not openly regretting what happened.

‘Not have coffee.’

He tuts, but it’s not long before he pulls himself out of bed and flicks his kettle on. It’s difficult to begrudge just-awake Hal anything. He starts to wonder if Hal’s this needy with everyone he’s recently had sex with, but Poins doesn’t want to go there. Ignorance may indeed be bliss.

-

Outside a club. Hal is leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette with enough style to threaten Gucci. He flicks his eyes towards Poins, who’s just come outside looking for him.

‘Someone asked if we’re fucking.’ Poins waits for some elaboration: what Hal said in response maybe. ‘Rather a crude expression,’ his friend observes instead, blowing out smoke.

‘You don’t smoke,’ he says back. It’s a skill, working out what sort of mood Hal’s in, what persona he’s got on that night, and running with it, either if that means not calling him out on all his bullshit comments and unusual habits.

‘I do tonight. It felt right.’ Poins holds back a comment, because the one that springs to mind is ‘well, it looks fucking attractive’ and he doesn’t think Hal’s ego needs that. ‘You want a go?’

Poins nods and takes it. He doesn’t smoke either, but he has, back at school when all his friends were trying it out. Impressionable when he wants to be. He takes a drag slowly, casting his eyes over to where Hal is watching him intently. No wonder people ask questions. They’d gossip even more if they knew he’d met Hal’s family today, or the members who’ll visit him, which turned out to be his youngest brother and sister, accompanied by his slightly distant stepmum. She’d smiled at Poins, but hadn’t seemed to understand why he was there. Neither had he.

He hands the cigarette back to Hal, who stubs it out disinterestedly.

‘That’s my flirt with smoking done. Not for me.’ Hal looks at him slyly. ‘Maybe you should try it more often, though.’

He rolls his eyes and they turn to go back into the club. Just before the door, Hal looks back at him.

‘I said it’s all a matter of opinion, and that in one universe, we are fucking.’

‘Lucky you didn’t point out that you meant this one.’ They burst out laughing, clutching each other’s shoulders as they return inside. No longer do people not understand Ed Poins: they don’t understand Hal-and-Poins instead. There’s a distinct difference.

-

The air is hot and thick, a freak occurrence in English weather. It’s the one week in late May when it’s ridiculously warm and nobody knows how to act, so the city is full of people in shorts who can’t quite remember what to do in the heat. Poins has a stack of romantic poetry to read before the end of the week and no inclination to do work. He can’t even coax a hint of a breeze through his open window. He’s lying on his bed, sprawled out and trying to think back to when it was freezing and he had to put on gloves to type essays.

Knocking at his door. He knows who it is.

‘It’s on the latch,’ he calls out. In walks Hal, carrying a Tesco carrier bag and looking just as overheated.

‘I’m your saviour,’ his friend declares. ‘I have chilled alcohol and cake and refuse to let you stay inside a moment longer.’

Poins grins languidly. They go off to the park and lie on the grass, drinking the bottles of sparkling wine and getting progressively more tipsy as the afternoon becomes evening. The heat becomes a physical boundary, protecting them from anything but their rambling conversation and each other’s complete attention. Poins thinks about how easy it would be to say something to Hal, some seemingly offhand comment that attempts to get across the massive place that the guy holds in his life.

‘You know, this girl I was talking to the other day,’ Hal relates, staring up at the sky, ‘claimed that the whole point of being here was to make connections, not to work at all. Bullshit of course, I could meet more influential people at one of my father’s shitty events that I ever will here, but you have to wonder the effect of the people you meet…’

Hal turns his head and looks straight at him, but Poins can’t do it. He can’t change this dynamic, can’t threaten their strange equilibrium with a new factor. Hal probably wants friendship and occasional sex and that’s it. He ought to appreciate he has that much.

‘I know your effect,’ he jokes instead. ‘You are a terrible influence. I was working until you turned up.’

‘Like fuck you were. C’mon, you were waiting for me to distract you.’ Hal smiles like he’s proud of this fact, like at that moment he cares about nothing but ensuring he’s a suitable distraction for his friend, and Poins knows he can’t jeopardise this for anything. Even if it means accepting that officially he is nothing but one of Hal’s friends, a nondescript guy who will never be more than a blip in the fabulous life of Hal Lancaster. He’ll pay that price, because over the past year he’s gained a need for the excitement of Hal in his world, regardless of the cost.

Later, when darkness has finally fallen and chased them inside, they lie on Hal’s bed, too warm to do anything but trail lazy kisses upon each other. It’s intimate, but there’s something about Oxford in the heat of the summer that excuses them, like a magical aura that they are safely under the protection of. It’ll end, but not yet.

-

Poins shoves his wheeled suitcase onto his bed and collapses down after it. Home, although that word is meaning less and less as time goes on, feels constricting and he can’t believe that yesterday he was in a different continent. His sister appears in his doorway, all false smile and nosiness.

‘How was your holiday?’ she inquires, tapping her fingernails on his door frame.

To answer honestly would be impossible. He’d spent a week in New York with Hal: simple enough to describe, surely? Not at all. From the moment the plane had started to move along the runway and he’d spotted Hal’s fingers digging into the armrest, the trip had denied a simple description (Poins had placed his own hand over Hal’s and grinned ‘You should have said’, to which Hal had rolled his eyes and then leaned closer).

He wonders if it’ll be the pinnacle of their relationship because, for one week, they were almost in one, although not in so many words. They took a vacation from their usual lives and became tourists visiting the idea of being together as well as in the city. Constantly touching, being reassured that the other was there, sharing in the excitement of their escape. He’d never seen Hal so exuberant, delighting in the knowledge that nobody was watching him there. Two lost boys in a city that didn’t care: freedom beyond belief.

The trip itself was the usual holiday mess of queues and crowds, but they didn’t care. They embraced the tacky and the overpriced and when they returned to their hotel room, they danced around and laughed just because they could. The echoes of those nights still thrive in his veins now, back in England and trying to answer his sister.

‘Great.’

Short and simple. After all, there’s only one year left of Oxford and he’s not having the memory of the trip tarnished by his sister’s comments. For a week he had something resembling what he thinks he might want. It’s all he believes he’ll get.

-

A generic night out: too much alcohol, too little care for the work that needs to be done the next day. The club is full and everyone is pressed close. Heads pounding, bodies pulsing. They came with a huge group of people from their college who all seem to know Hal, although Poins has no idea how. He lurks at the edge, not one for the spotlight, watching Hal dance and interact with everyone. It’s fine. Jealousy is an emotion he never lives without: it runs through his veins and feeds anger he didn’t expect to have. Everyone needs a favourite sin after all, and of course his had to be Hal-related.

The song changes and it’s one they dance around to all the time; it carries a magnetic power that forces them together. His friend is back next to him, changing that ridiculous grin he adorns when he’s being the centre of attention into one that is less promiscuous, more specific. Poins smiles back, because this is the attention he craves, however erratic it may be. It’s fine dancing together, he thinks, because everyone’s doing it and nobody has any personal space, but then he sees one girl from their group staring, some kind of suspicion looming in her eyes. An incline of his head alerts Hal and suddenly his friend is gone, like an ghost in the face of daylight.

Poins pushes his way through the crowd and out of the club into the cold autumnal air, taking in deep gulping breaths as it hits him. He’s been deluding himself that what happens in private means the same thing to Hal as it does to him. The past few months have blinded him to the essential truth of their relationship: it is undefined and it will end, like a postmodern sentence or the existence of humanity. They can’t carry on like this forever.

-

‘What are you doing next year?’ he asks Hal again, because one day there might be a real answer, one that isn’t some exaggerated description of how many parties he’ll go to, different people he’ll sleep with and extortionate amounts of money he’ll spend. It’s after Christmas now and time is drawing on: the realities of third year. People are applying for courses and jobs, but they’re a blur in the background to him these days.

‘Living with you, of course.’

It’s a stealthily disguised question and it takes knowing Hal as well as he does to hear the utter terror in those last two words. A crucial moment masquerading as a casual one. Poins is taken aback. He mustn’t hesitate in his answer.

‘Yes, of course.’ He’s answering the implied question, weaving in a layer of sarcasm to hide his emotions.

Funny how such a major decision can sound so innocuous.

-

Precisely two days before the end of his final university break, everything goes to shit. Foolishly, he admits his plans for post-Oxford at the dinner table and his father yells, ranting about wasting three years reading and gathering debts and living in a fucking dream world. How he’ll never get a job because he’s unemployable and content to spend his time following around that poncy rich pal of his who wouldn’t know the value of money if it beat him up down a dark alley and left him for dead.

Poins is almost tempted to be impressed at his dad’s use of words, because that’s quite a metaphor for him. He sits and listens to the diatribe against his lifestyle and his friend and his lack of a future, feeling his blood boil at his father’s ignorant assumptions. Meanwhile, his mum tries to look anywhere but at him and his sister smirks because she’s not the one in trouble. He hides so much from his family that he’s forgotten what it’s like to actually tell them something. The last time he did that was probably the day he told them he had an offer from Oxford, holding out the letter like his words had no worth alone. Funny, considering what he was going to study.

Words are traitors to him tonight though. Everything he says angers his dad further, until eventually it explodes.

‘If you’re so set on this, get out,’ his dad orders, red-faced and clutching at the table. ‘Leave and don’t even think of speaking to us until you’ve left your mess of a friend behind and grown the fuck up.’

Poins sees no humour in his eyes, no light that suggests anything other than deadly seriousness. He stands, leaving the remnants of his roast dinner behind.

‘Fine.’ He’s well and truly chosen his path now.

-

The floor outside Hal’s room is cold and hard and Poins is starting to regret the choice of sitting out there waiting for his friend to come back, but he couldn’t sit in his room any longer, staring at the boxes he had to hastily pack the night before. He’s not slept or eaten since he made his choice.

‘Shit, you really did need me,’ exclaims Hal as he rounds the corner, raising an eyebrow at Poins’ choice of seat.

‘Thought it’d fit my new status as the disgraced son,’ he responds. He’d told Hal over the phone what happened, barking out the words that felt so cold on his tongue.

‘Join the club,’ Hal mutters as he unlocks his door. Poins bristles at that, because Hal doesn’t understand, not really. Hal rebels and still gets a seemingly endless allowance of money. He’s not been given a simple ultimatum. His friend’s so fucking naive sometimes.

‘Hal, he’s actually kicked me out and said he won’t talk to me again while I still know you,’ he snaps. Hal’s room is large and messy, full of memories reminding him what he opted for. He’s got to get this across to Hal. ‘It’s literally them or you.’

There’s a horrible moment when he’s convinced Hal is going to go ‘Surprise! It was all a joke, I don’t give a shit about you!’. His stomach churns and his breathing quickens. Please say something, he wills.

‘Well,’ says Hal, seeming to summon bravado, ‘we’ll just have to make sure we have a flat sorted for the end of term, won’t we?’ Poins nods gratefully, because he can’t speak. ‘Let’s go eat, then you and I have a date with a bottle of good scotch we can’t miss.’

The evening progresses as promised, soaked in whisky and full of Hal’s attempts to cheer his friend up. Poins doesn’t feel like being cheerful, but there’s some underlying knowledge that they will have to change, that the future won’t be quite like these past years, which causes him to cling onto Hal’s arm as they drunkenly lean against one another. Every touch could be the last. Any day Hal could throw this all off as a youthful, rebellious whim. For Poins, though, it’s his whole life.

-

He stands in his doorway and stares into his now packed up room. It’s shitty, but for the year it was his: the scene of essays and revision, drinking and Hal. The new place will be different. Theirs, but not in the same way. Poins knows that must end now. Stolen nights in the haze of student life are fine, but when you live together it’s too exposed to try and keep up something as elusive as what they have. Had. He’s got to find a job; Hal’s got to take up being a rebellious party boy full time. They will go out and drink and Hal will look for scandal, because three years at university wasn’t enough for him. A big city, innumerable vices. If Poins wants to survive, he’s realised he’s going to have to draw a line under the whole Oxford thing and start again, less invested than the first time. Just look where that fucking got him, he thinks.


	4. Oldest Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hal Lancaster, growing up and dealing with being a Lancaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hal backstory! This spans from his childhood until just after the ending of The Oldest Sins, although hopefully it should be fairly clear where each segment vaguely fits in.
> 
> No warnings apply, as far as I know. Expect a lot of family issues, though. Oh, and references to already-canonical death.

‘You’ll find a nice girl and move in together. Settle down, have kids, work hard…’

Hal’s mum trails off, but he continues to stare at her, waiting for her next piece of wisdom perhaps. He does not look convinced by the last one, at any rate. Nine years old: not exactly the age for believing his mother’s claim that one day he’ll become a boring grown-up.

‘Not like dad?’ Hal asks, and his mum shakes her head in despair. Already, the easier way to make her son do something is to tell him that his father wouldn’t like it.

‘Well, maybe not then. Maybe you’ll never stop, keep breaking hearts and defying your father, and I’ll never stop worrying.’ 

She’s talking to herself now, lost in thoughts of her eldest son going off the rails solely to annoy Henry. Wouldn’t Henry hate that. But, she knows, it won’t be solely to irritate his father. She’s seen the look in her son’s eyes when he does something exciting, illicit, bad: he’s always delighted in it, brought up to have everything but still wants what he can’t have.

Hal’s over by his sister now, watching her in her baby seat whilst she sleeps. It’s the first of his siblings he’s taken an interest in, other than a cursory ‘oh right, another one’ and running off to do something whilst everyone is distracted. With Philippa, though, he returns back to her, keeps an eye out like the big brother his mum hopes he’ll grow into.

‘Mum, mum, Philly’s woken up,’ he calls after a minute or two. ‘She might want something.’

And there, there is her hope. Proof that her son, the one she’s most worried will turn down a troubled path, has more on his mind than wrecking havoc and being too clever for his own good. Something in his second sister’s look had drawn in his loyalty.

John and Humphrey run in, yelling at each other, and she talks to them slowly, trying to calm them down and find out where the nanny is. With Bethany, her boys answer, and when she turns back to check on Philippa and Hal, her eldest son is keeping up a quiet monologue to his baby sister, telling her all about how he’ll take her to the park, the good big one where they went and Tom fell over and cried.

Just as long as life gives him no new reasons to dislike his father, she decides, then her son should be alright. She can keep him from antagonising Henry too much, she is almost certain. There is hope.

-

‘What’s wrong with girls?’ asks fifteen year old Hal, looking down angrily at his brother. Humphrey is ten and has claimed that girls are all horrible, which means that Bethany and Philippa are glaring at him with evil in their eyes, or as much evil as the six and eight year olds can muster. Hal doesn’t want to be doing this, he wants to play on his computer or sneak out the house to see one of his friends, but Philippa is close to tears and nobody, not even Humphrey, is allowed to make her cry.

‘Well…’ says Humphrey, withering under the gaze of his brother.

‘Girls and boys, what’s the difference?’ Hal says rhetorically, cutting off Humphrey’s immediate answer with a warning look. ‘I’m sure these two could beat you in a fight, anyway.’

Philippa flexes her arm with a grin, showing off her apparent strength.

‘That’s better,’ he smiles, then shoos them off with one hand. ‘Now go play.’

Once they’ve left his room, he picks up something close to hand without checking what it is, and lobs it across the room in annoyance. His mum should be here for this. He’s fucking fed up of it. Joan’s around all the time now, but they won’t go to her, not for their squabbles, and even if he was home, they’d never got to their dad. No, they come to Hal, the younger three at least, expecting him to solve everything. He helps, listens, and then steals from Henry’s wine store to make himself feel less goody two shoes. 

Does his homework because he wants to leave, go away to university and have a party every night, rather than stay and work for his dad. Messes around, sneaks out the house, but gets perfect marks, because why can’t he do both, he thinks. It can’t be difficult.

-

Hal grins smugly to himself, looking down at the piece of paper containing his exam results. Around him, people are celebrating and commiserating, some with parents and some with friends, but he stands apart. He didn’t even tell his dad when results day was.

He has done it. He’s gotten into Oxford on his own merit, not on his dad’s money, and he’s done it all whilst going out drinking at the weekend, living it up with his friends and raiding all their parents’ drinks cabinets before they could buy their own. Nothing too big, not yet, but it’s a start, and it annoyed his dad, so it was worth it. Even his friends probably didn’t expect him to get these results, the As he needed to get in, because he was never going to reveal to them how much work he did, at their posh school where half the pupils are just waiting to inherit one day.

Fuck you dad, he thinks, looking down at the grades one last time before walking into a crowd of people, ready to reveal his success. They will congratulate him, or insult him in a friendly way, but he knows they are envious too, envious that he’s done all this, that he didn’t even tell his dad that he applied to Oxford, just casually slipped it into conversation when he got called for interview. He lies, tells everyone he did no work at all, because you mustn’t let them see how much effort you put in.

Hal will twist expectations if it kills him. He hates them, those things people expect of him, but he’s starting to see how they could be useful.

-

‘So, is he your boyfriend?’

Hal blinks, nonplussed. Bethany is standing in his doorway, raising her eyebrows in a way that reminds him slightly of their mum. She’s only thirteen and Hal’s not sure how ‘on the phone to a guy’ has jumped in her mind to ‘must be together’, although from what he remembers of being thirteen, that is the sort of thing you might tease someone about. What’s even more unnerving is that, one, Bethany doesn’t tend to have much to do with him, other than the odd conversation or not over each uni vacation, and two, she seems to have no qualms about suggesting that he’d be into guys at all.

‘What?’ he splutters, well aware that Poins is still on the other end of the phone line and will hear anything he says. Bethany grins, clearly pleased to have caught him off balance. She’s intelligent, maybe even more so than him, but usually keeps her head down doing schoolwork rather than using her powers to taunt Hal.

‘Well, you seem to have been on the phone to him all summer, so far,’ she offers, ‘and you did say you’re going to New York with him too. Like, that seems quite intense.’

‘No it’s not. We just talk a lot.’

Hal can’t deny that one, because she’s right, they have spoken a lot on the phone since they went home for the summer, but that’s just because neither have much to do, and they usually lounge around chatting shit when they’re bored, so why change that just because of a lack of proximity?

‘You asked him which jeans to wear yesterday,’ Bethany points out, and Hal blinks. ‘I was walking past your door, I heard you.’

‘He...knows which are best.’

‘You were only going out shopping with Humphrey. Why does it matter what your “not-boyfriend”-’ Hal winces at her air quotes. ‘-who’s not even in the same city thinks about your trousers?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ says Hal, going for not addressing the rest of her question. Bethany’s grin widens, and he realises she’s about to win whatever this game is.

‘Don’t talk on the phone with him whilst you’re getting dressed, then,’ she sings, then skips out with more smugness than Hal thinks he’s ever managed in his entire life. 

He never realised his elder sister paid so much attention; if so, he might have been more careful, because he knows his brothers won’t notice anything strange, and Philippa’s only eleven and quite easy to make excuses to, because he’s been explaining the world to her for years.

‘Still there?’ he says into his phone, hearing laughing on the other end. ‘Yes, it’s hilarious. Now, when can I come and stay?’

-

‘You’ll be fine,’ reassures Hal, perhaps both to himself and Poins, ‘I mean, he’s a total fucking dick, but you’ll be fine. It’s just his twisted little game to make it seem like he has some kind of control over what I do.’

Poins has never been inside the offices of Lancaster King Ltd before, and Hal is well aware that multimillion pound companies are not the places most people go when their friend’s dad wants to check them out before they’re allowed to rent a flat together. Henry’s demand over the phone that ‘if I’m basically funding him living with you, I want to have actually seen him’ is just part of their favourite power play, the one that Hal is going to break away from the second he no longer has to return back to the family home every vacation, i.e. very soon. The plan’s all in place, but he needs this one last bit of approval before he can turn from Hal Lancaster, wayward rich Oxford student, into the infamous Hal, heir to Lancaster King and utter fuck up party boy.

‘Hal,’ says his father’s PA when they reach Henry’s office. ‘He’s waiting inside.’

Hal smirks, because he made them late on purpose, fussing over which tie to wear and nearly making them miss the train from Oxford. Terms mean nothing to Henry Lancaster; they had to come regardless. Poins spent half the train journey moaning because Hal wouldn’t let him dress smartly, but instead made him wear his usual clothing to contrast with Hal’s stupidly expensive suit. It’s pretty symbolic.

The meeting itself is just as pointless as Hal expected. Henry looks Poins up and down, calls him Edward, and waves a hand to suggest they’re wasting his time, despite him demanding their presence.

‘Very kind of you, father,’ says Hal as they walk out, injecting as much false sincerity as he can. Henry looks, for just a second, wrong-footed. As soon as the office door closes, Hal bursts out laughing, one hand on Poins’ shoulder for support.

‘I’ve never said that to him in my life,’ he wheezes out once the laughter has subsided. Poins looks at him, bemused. Hal’s met his dad: more of a blunt anger type, who’d looked at Hal suspiciously and asked faintly accusatory questions. Not the sort to have the kind of cold war Hal has with Henry. ‘C’mon, there’s gotta be a decent cupboard around here somewhere.’

They share a grin, both united. This is not something Henry would expect, nor will he know about, but they’ll take it as a victory.

-

Humphrey sits nervously on the sofa, eyes darting everywhere, and Hal wonders if he thinks he’ll get in trouble for this. It’s the first time any of his siblings have visited him at his and Poins’ flat, and though it doesn’t seem that his father has expressly forbidden it, he might not be pleased either. His brother is bringing news, or at least listing it, telling him about Philippa and Bethany at school and their two brothers working at the company, how Philippa wants a puppy but isn’t allowed one. They don’t mention whether this is revenge on Henry’s part for her unerring loyalty to Hal.

‘Mum would’ve been proud,’ mutters Humphrey after a pause, once he’d apparently run out of details about the family Hal’s trying to appear separated from. Hal jumps, not expecting the reference.

‘Of this?’ Hal asks incredulously, gesturing around at the flat littered with alcohol bottles and shaking slightly with the sound of Jack snoring from the kitchen floor (Humphrey’s not even asked about that).

‘Of you, doing something, doing what you want, being you.’

Hal can’t meet his brother’s eye. Even though Humphrey’s just trying to be friendly, as there’s no way he has any clue if his long-dead mother would be proud of Hal ‘being himself’, it cuts a little too deep that his own little brother thinks he’s being true to himself, and is proud of his brother for doing so. The curse of fooling everybody.

‘I don’t know,’ he mutters, begging for Jack to wake up, for Poins to come home from his stupid job, for anything to happen but this moment. He sorely doubts that his mum would be proud of him for living more lies than he can always keep on top of.

Humphrey, it seems, realises to leave off the topic, or in his blundering way, accidentally does.

‘Philippa wanted to come.’

‘You didn’t bring her?’

‘Wasn’t sure if Dad…’ Humphrey trails off.

‘Ignore the fucker, and bring her along, if she’s the only fucking person who gives a shit how I’m doing,’ Hal says bitterly, more out of desperation to stop feeling so fucking bad about his family than actual anger. He wants to see his sister: she wouldn’t have Humphrey’s awkwardness, his fear of what their father will think or say. She’ll have that same relentless loyalty as always, the loyalty he’s starting to realise he has inspired very little of.

Right then, the front door flies open and in walks Poins, already muttering about making tea and photocopying. He looks up, sees the company, and puts on a false smile.

‘Honey, I’m ho-ome,’ he sings out, and Hal thanks the universe for the interruption, for having a flatmate who knows when the mood needs changing. For having, for now, Poins.

-

‘Board meeting in five minutes,’ says John, barely sticking his head round the door of the office. Hal’s office. Harry Lancaster, the name plaque reads, because he refused to be another Henry on the door. Hal has not seen his brother this much in years; as children they got along, ganging up to laugh at Tom’s sincerity or Humphrey’s endless chasing to be like his brothers, but they were meant for different paths, and each step took them further and further apart. John didn’t like Poins, didn’t like Hal’s friends or his choices, and now Hal has swooped back in and stolen all that John could have been master of. It must taste bitter.

Family was always complicated, but it seems to have gotten even worse now in Hal’s eyes. No parents now, divided loyalties, and a brother so changeable that nobody will quite meet his gaze. The public may fall for it, see the articles and the scheduled appearances and that smile, half humble and half confident, but his family have seen one too many change. The Lancasters are not fools.

Neither is Edward Poins, the one person who saw what Hal was doing. Hal’s shot at an actual connection, at a person who gave a shit about him and wasn’t bound to do so by blood or by the hope of money or fame. He is no fool, or was no fool, for Hal cannot speak for the present. Then again, maybe Poins was a fool, for seeing through Hal’s act and still not leaving. For getting entwined with him and his mess of a family, of a life.

Who is proud of Hal now? Would his father be, seeing him using these weeks to turn around his image, to take up the mantle? Or would he merely nod and complain, to Hal’s face or behind his back, that the ability to change means nothing, shows instability and nothing else?

His siblings can’t be, too used to Hal’s workings to see any skill in it, and he has no clue what his mum would’ve thought, because he can only see her as the little ten year old with slightly curly hair could, smiling and so much better than his father. What did she expect of him, he wonders, what did she want for her eldest son? The one person he’s never been able to fail, or to fulfill the expectations of.

Hal gathers up the papers he needs for the meeting, checks his tie in the mirror, and smiles to himself, checking it still works, a fake one at least. The joys of his family: he’s always been good at faking smiles.

-

Poins unlocks the door to his new flat, or new box masquerading as a flat to someone who’s spent the previous two years living in a rich fucker’s apartment, and throws down the magazine in disgust. He read it on the tube home; a dangerous move, because he came close to ripping the picture out, screwing it into a tiny ball, and pelting it at the next person who had any vague characteristic that reminded him of Hal.

He did not, however, and so is left with the stupid thing, the fucking article written by some gormless cunt who has been entirely taken in by the act. Hal’s fucking act.

You’ve got to hand it to Hal, he thinks, the guy’s done well. Even the fucking press believe in him now, or will. Still, one less person believes in him that used to, Poins thinks with a malicious grin as he opens the incredibly stiff window and flings the magazine out of it, not caring if it hits some passer-by. Gained the public; lost Ed Poins. He can’t imagine it’s a bad deal. It must have been what Hal expected.


	5. Illusions and Pretence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early days, perfecting the act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more snippets of their morphing dynamic, set at Oxford (in their second and near the end of the final year, respectively).
> 
> No warnings apply, other than a typical-for-them level of drinking.

‘Poins, what exactly did she tell you?’ Hal asks, looking around at the club they’ve just entered. Everything is black and shiny, and it takes him a moment to realise the latter is due to lots of mirrors. Alcohol does not help mirror perception. He’s sober enough, though, to realise that he wasn’t quite expecting those topless guys grinding against each other or those girls making out aggressively near the middle of the dancefloor.

‘That, um…’ He looks sheepish for a moment, although Hal can hardly tell because they’re having to lean so close to hear each other. ‘This was a great club.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nope. Well, she said not to go there with all the guys, but I… I assumed she meant it was small…’ Hal shakes his head in mock despair. Someone elbows him in the side as they dance past towards the bar. Clubs aren’t the best place for discussions, after all. He can’t even remember which girl Poins is referring to. Maybe one from college. One who’s got a sixth sense for gay sex or something and has thus surmised Poins might like the place. Just as long as it wasn’t someone who lived next door to him. That might be awkward, to say the least.

‘So instead we came, just us together, to what we now discover is a gay club,’ Hal summarises.

‘That’s true, yes.’ Poins raises an eyebrow, as if asking Hal what he’s going to do about it. Hal’s eyes sparkle and the corners of his mouth curl into a smirk.

‘In a club, only one option.’ He pauses and throws an arm round Poins’ shoulders. ‘Drinks.’

At the bar, Hal does his usual trick of smiling his way into getting served quickly, buying drinks for the two of them because his father’s money has its uses. He notices Poins put a hand on his shoulder, but fails to spot any significance in this. Shots of tequila are lined up by the guy behind the bar and they throw back a few each, grinning at each other afterwards like this is a novelty. Hal’s brain is just moving from ‘drink’ to ‘dance’ when he feels himself pulled forward by his t-shirt and then Poins’ lips are on his, wet and tasting strongly of tequila. Then, they’re gone, and he hears that familiar voice mutter in his ear ‘Nobody knows us here’ with persuasive certainty. It’s probably true, he knows (their usual crowd isn’t really the sort for this place).

Poins pulls him over to the dancefloor, knowing Hal’s order of business upon a night out. Drink, dance, rinse, repeat. Hal’s fine with this choice, but once they’re in the throng he moves closer together than normal, one hand on Poins’ hip in an unabashedly possessive way. Tonight they’ll pretend. It’ll be fun, he thinks.

-

 

‘It’s got to stop, y’know…’

Poins knows. He knows so fucking much. He wishes he didn’t have to listen. Hal’s face is mere inches away and his voice is soft, whether for diplomacy or unintentionally Poins hasn’t decided. It’s impossible not to listen. They’re lying in Poins’ bed, the one that will no longer be his in a few days because their degrees are over, their time in the bubble is over. The morning sun is sneaking through the inadequately closed curtains and Poins thinks it’d be picturesque if it wasn’t so fucking awful.

‘People, they’ll know. They already do, they mutter under their breath that we’re screwing or whatever, but it doesn’t fucking matter so much here.’

Hal’s voice is still soft, so the expletive comes out pleasantly. Poins still flinches. He knows what Hal means. The media is not here. Gossip spreads amongst those they know, but it doesn’t get any further. Out there, in the big wide world of London, people will be watching to see what Hal Lancaster does next. Most will be expecting a turnaround, an escape from the university days into a smart young man ready for his father’s company. Poins does not expect this. He’s seen Hal’s preparations for leaving: their shared penthouse flat, no job, already working out in which places he’s most likely to be seen. Hal’s plan does not include a turnaround. Not yet, at least. Poins assumes Hal won’t live like that forever.

‘I’m not letting the press have it. Not this. Not come after you, asking if Hal Lancaster’s a good shag. So, it has to stop.’

Poins still hasn’t responded, just stares back at Hal. They’re no longer touching, despite the close proximity; at some point whilst Hal was speaking, they both subconsciously shifted away. Fucking symbolism, Poins thinks. Still, it’s not the end.

‘It’ll be different anyway,’ Hal offers, clearly unable to take the lack of response. ‘Living together and you’ll be job hunting and we’ll have to find our feet and…’

‘Hal, it’s okay,’ he says slowly, to shut his friend up. ‘People here already think we’re-’

‘-fucking. Yeah, I know,’ butts in Hal as he gets out of the bed. He scours the floor for his clothes and silently gets dressed. Poins waits, watching,   
wondering if this is the last time he will see the spectacle of Hal trying to find where he flung his t-shirt. Eventually, Hal is done. He grabs his phone from the bedside table and walks towards the door.

‘Glad you understand,’ he says by way of a goodbye. Poins nods against the pillow, but Hal is already gone. It’s not a real goodbye, but something has changed nonetheless. They’ve been open about the thing that’s been creeping up for days, maybe even weeks. Oxford can’t protect them any longer, not from the real world and not from the journalists who want to spread rumours about the heir to Lancaster King Ltd.

Hal was wrong though, he thinks. That wasn’t how he was going to end the sentence. Some people do think they’re fucking, that’s true, but they think more than that. People, whether Hal can see it or not, believe they’re actually together, in some sort of secret relationship. Poins knows because people have asked him as much. They try their hardest to word it carefully, but they fail. He knows what they mean. Him and Hal seem too close, too absorbed in one another, or at least Poins is too absorbed in Hal. He does not quite believe that Hal is as interested in him. Still, as Poins sees it, people think they’re together and Hal cannot see this because Hal has no notion that it could ever occur. Poins, however, is haunted by the idea. He’s happy with how they’ve been, has been desperately happy at times, but there’s little security in happiness. It could be taken away at any point.


	6. Saddle The Horses (Or The Porsche)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable road trip fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hal and Poins go on the road, and remember to pack the issues. Set after 'Idiocy's Not The Only Option' and 'This is how it feels to take a fall' (chapters 1 and 2 of this).
> 
> Usual levels of expletive language, but I don't think any other warnings apply (as ever, let me know if you think they do).
> 
> This is full of tropes and melodrama, for which I blame alichay who, as ever, forced me to write it.

**Prologue**

‘It’s your sister’s birthday party, not the fucking Oscars.’

‘Why the fuck would I be going to the Oscars?’ retorts Hal, scrunching up his face as he buttons his shirt.

‘I don’t know, why are you wearing a two hundred quid shirt to your sister’s birthday meal?’ Poins counters, then leaves their bedroom with a skip in his step.

He shouldn’t be skipping, because it’s time for Poins to go and face the Lancasters, as he never calls them, assembled together for the first time since Henry’s funeral over a year ago. They’re a dramatic bunch, but then again, Hal is one of them. Hal, the guy who used to challenge people to dance-offs as a matter of course. Hal would do anything back then, as long as it furthered his image and didn’t leave him vulnerable.

Eventually, after more preening from Hal, and Poins trying to stop him taking half their alcohol selection as an extra present for Philippa (‘she’s sixteen, at least leave us with the good vodka’), they leave. Her party’s at some fancy restaurant, which even after years of being friends with Hal, Poins is not used to: Hal, for all his rich boy pretensions, isn’t much of a food snob, and they tended to opt for smaller places where they were unlikely to be seen. Eating out wasn’t a public evening, and besides, people tended to think they were on a date if they did see them eating out together, regardless of how often it actually occurred.

Shiny: that is Poins’ first thought as they enter, late of course. The whole gang are waiting, Hal’s five siblings and their assorted personalities, plus their stepmum Joan and a few of Philippa’s friends. The latter are the most unnerving to Poins, because they immediately start staring at him as he takes a spare chair next to Bethany. Hal sits opposite once he’s been over to hug his now sixteen year old and quite embarrassed sister and hand her their presents.

‘Why are they staring?’ he whispers to Bethany, who smirks back at him. He never knew her well beforehand, but since reconciling with Hal, she’s visited a few times, and sometimes it’s nice to talk to a Lancaster sibling not quite so in your face.

‘Because,’ she says, raising her eyebrows to meet her blonde fringe, ‘my little sister takes great delight in telling her friends about her eldest brother and his “totally awesome” boyfriend. You come highly recommended - you can bet she’s told them stories.’

‘What stories are there?’ he whispers back, aware that Hal is watching them suspiciously, probably thinking they’re bitching about him. Bethany’s grin widens.

‘Oh, loads. I think she’s still telling the one where Hal locked you in a dungeon for six months.’

It takes Poins at least a moment to realise she’s joking.

‘Bethany,’ Hal whines dramatically from across the table, ‘stop stealing Poins.’

The meal progresses in a similarly over the top fashion. Tom’s girlfriend, relatively new, looks apprehensive as Hal makes snippy comments at anyone he thinks is being less than completely lovely towards Poins. John and Humphrey bicker over Philippa’s first words, which Hal settles with an answer that nobody dares argue with, and Bethany snaps at both Joan and Tom for making remarks about the two glasses of wine she’s drinking. Still, in Poins’ opinion, the meal is going remarkably well all things considering.

This cannot, of course, last.

The problem is not, as might be expected, a clash between two Lancaster siblings, but an offhand comment from one that causes any delight in Hal’s eyes, any happiness at his little sister’s birthday, to disappear in a instant. Poins watches this happen almost in slow motion, and panics.

Philippa’s telling a story about a guy at school who won’t leave her alone, with her friends adding in comments about how she’ll probably still get texts from him when she’s ninety, when John chimes in with what he must, Poins assumes, think is simply a good, if slightly mean, joke.

‘Why don’t you ask your big brother, he’s good at getting rid of people?’

That’s it: Poins watches as Hal’s world collapses, because for once Hal forgets to play his part. His entire face transforms, first his eyes and then that smile is gone, the real and the fake. There’s not even dramatic silence: they all move on from John’s line and continue the conversation. Poins has no time to check if anyone noticed, because his eyes are fixed on Hal, on the face that looks so fucking vulnerable for a full thirty seconds, until the businessman takes over and the expression is neatened into something fit for public.

Glossed over, but not gone. The months of learning not to ignore the little things, or not to convince himself that he doesn’t notice them, have paid off: Poins can see easily that Hal is entirely unsettled, keyed up and constantly returning his gaze back to Poins, watching. The expanse of table between them, plates and glasses and weird candle centre pieces that Poins doesn’t see the point of, is too great. There’s no excuse to drag Hal out of the restaurant and shove him up against some wall, use actual physical proof to convince him of the truth that Poins doubts his own words can do alone: that Poins will not leave.

But instead, trapped in the family rigamarole, his skin itching at the sight of the horribly fake smile, the one that isn’t for public appearances or being a charming businessman but for hiding the falling apart inside, Poins can do nothing. He waits, the Lancasters’ arguing and constant battling to come out on top washing over him like background music, but it is too late, and by the end of the evening, he knows he can say nothing now. Hal will not listen. He has forced the moment away, shoved the hurt under a facade, and it’ll take more than a few words to chip away, let it out and thus disprove it.

Also, there’s that chance that he’ll try, and fail, because communication, proper exposed communication rather than the instinctive version they are so adept at, has never been their forté. Poins isn’t losing Hal, not for all the fucking twats in the world, and not for potentially a few stupidly chosen words.

-

The restaurant noise buzzes in Hal’s ears until it overwhelms him, but he does not move, does not give any indication of this fact. The shield is up, but his brain is screeching louder than anything. He’s going to leave, it says like there’s a little malicious devil lurking in there, he doesn’t forgive you and he’s going to leave when he realises you can never make up for what you did. Hal knows it is true, believes it wholeheartedly. 

After John’s comment, he saw Poins’ happy exterior disappear, worry to line his face like it used to when Hal’s party boy lifestyle seemed to get away from him. When Hal got ill from bad food and too much alcohol, still insisting on going out because he had to be seen, to be photographed. Poins would look at him, make offhand comments about how Hal should stay in, and Hal would, sometimes, because he knew that his flatmate was right, but other times he’d go out, ignore his friend because that was who he had to be, and because Poins was not the boss of him. This time, Hal does not think the worry is about him, but about Poins himself. Self-preservation instinct perhaps, the one that the guy seems to have lacked for years of living by Hal’s side, in Hal’s shadow.

You don’t betray your shadow. You don’t kick them out, send them away, vow to never speak to them again. Or at least, you don’t, Hal thinks, and then want them back, promise them everything you said they couldn’t have if only they’ll stay.

He needs a plan, something grand and big and overblown. Something that will counteract the sneaking around and the lies and the deception, like he’s some desperate guy from a shitty 80s film, the kind that Humphrey seems to like far more than anybody should. He hates those films, but he likes mocking them, drinking too much with Poins back when they were students and watching any film to laugh, laugh at how they’d never do anything like those characters.

Hal’s got to do something, because a few more comments like that, and he’s sure Ed Poins will just leave, go and live anywhere, even the gutter, if it means away from the danger of Hal.

 

* * *  
* * *

**The Road Trip**

 

‘Holiday?’

Poins’ head snaps round in shock. Hal’s sitting at the table, laptop in front of him, with a complacent grin that Poins does not think is quite sincere. Once again, Hal seems to be attempting casual with a question more important than it sounds.

The idea of a holiday is ridiculous, as unthinkable as Hal taking up wearing t-shirts to the office. It’s been months since they’ve been back living together, but if there’s one thing that’s very apparent, it’s that Hal does not take time off. His image is still on the line, not helped by the need to prove that just because a figure from his past is back, is openly his boyfriend in fact, Hal has not turned back on his promise to run the company properly.

‘Seriously?’

‘Well,’ concedes Hal, ‘not quite a holiday, more of a...road trip? With some flying - a travel trip?’

‘A travel trip?’ repeats Poins, raising an eyebrow from his vantage point on the sofa.

‘Fuck off. I need to do some publicity stuff, go to meetings, and if I coincide them all, we can make a trip out of it. You can be the representative from the publicity department to make sure I don’t accidentally say anything I shouldn’t-’

Poins cuts him off.

‘Like the fact you once stole a load of dresses and fishnets from a corridor in Oxford to wear to a crossdressing party and then kept them for years?’

‘You wore them too,’ Hal retorts instantly, before seeming to remember the point, ‘but exactly, what if I went crazy and forgot how to deal with the public. You can be a good influence on me.’

Poins wonders if his eyebrows are able to be raised so high they’ll fly off into space, or at least through the roof of this penthouse apartment.

‘When have I ever been a good influence on you?’ he asks. Hal looks strangely awkward for a moment, a look not many people get to see. In fact, Poins would hazard he’s the only one.

‘Never,’ replies Hal finally, grin and all, but it’s hollow. Poins hates these moments. Both of them do it, shy away from the truth. ‘So, what do you think?’

It is not hard to tell, not for Poins anyway, how he must answer. How he wants to answer is, luckily, exactly the same.

‘Sign me up as your new tour press guy. Let’s get this show on the road.’

-

Hal looks down at the suitcase and wonders if he can change his mind before he has to pack. That, or trick Poins into doing it. He doesn’t do packing. When they went to New York, twenty year old students with his dad’s money to burn, he threw clothes into a suitcase haphazardly and then Bethany came in and told him off. Thirteen, and she was telling him to fold shirts before taking them on transatlantic flights. He did though, and when they got to the hotel, Poins had stared in surprise as Hal not only revealed the folded clothes, but actually hung them up in the wardrobe.

This does not, however, help him now. Poins has gone to the pub with people from the publicity department, possibly just a ruse so that Steven can give him yet another briefing on what Hal mustn’t say, like he’s never dealt with his own public image before. To make matters worse, Poins’ own already packed suitcase is sitting there on the floor, smiling up at Hal as if to remind him that they’re getting up tomorrow and leaving for their first stop, Manchester. Not, as people whispered in the publicity department when his schedule was sent round (it’s handy having a spy), because he’s going on BBC Breakfast, but because he has meetings there with companies Lancaster King owns, or wants to own. Other people usually go, but sometimes, the director has to prove he’s running the show.

The packed suitcase has decided (for Hal is blaming it) to distract him even further: it is now kindly reminding Hal of what might happen if it was packed for good. If its owner decided that actually, no, he did not want to keep giving his betrayer another chance. Fuck’s sake, Hal thinks, maybe I’ll just buy clothes when I’m there. Save all this fuss. Avoidance.

He does not opt for this, but eventually fills a suit carrier and suitcase with meeting outfits and media appearance outfits and ‘trying to do something that isn’t work with my boyfriend’ outfits. When Poins comes in not long after, laughing about the other employees’ inability to hold a few drinks well (‘they didn’t all have the same training as you’ Hal points out with a grin), Hal’s back to thinking his plan was a good idea.

By two a.m., when he’s lying awake feeling the rise and fall of Poins’ sleep-breathing against his back, Hal’s not sure again. Can he make Poins trust him? He’s not entirely sure that he trusts himself.

The alarm goes off at half six, rousing Hal out of the half-sleep he’d achieved. Poins clings tighter onto him, a usual sensation, as if the loud bleeping panics the other guy into thinking they will be separated.

They get up, dress, and stand drinking expensive coffee in the kitchen.

‘Can we even fit the bags in the Porsche?’ Poins asks, as if it’s only just occurred to him that they might not have the most practical car for this journey.

‘They’re small suitcases.’

‘Well, if not, it’s your lap they’re going on, seeing as you can’t fucking drive.’

That’s another thing about the whole affair: Hal, used to living in London and having the money to get other people to take him places, has never learnt to drive, despite owning an expensive sports car. They could’ve flown, or taken the train, but of course not, because Hal takes great delight in taking his car places, or more accurately, seeing Poins take his car places. Hal only bought it a couple of months ago, after realising that a company director should probably own a car, even one he cannot drive (also, the look on Poins’ face when he said he wanted to buy a Porsche but needed Poins to actually be the person who drove it was priceless, which is lucky because it was fucking expensive).

By eight, they’re in the car, Poins already bitching congenially about driving out of London, fingers curled around the steering wheel like he owns it. He does, really. Hal has never said the words, but there’s no point owning a car you can’t drive, and Hal has no inclination to learn. Why bother? Maybe if he told Poins that the car’s his, that he must always drive Hal in it, then he can never leave.

-

The motorway stretches out in front of him, lorries fighting with cars, but Poins doesn’t mind. Living in London, this is enough of a novelty to him that the boring drive is exciting and made up of the pair of them insulting other drivers and mocking each other like it’s years ago. Later, Hal falls asleep, and Poins uses the time to worry that Hal works too much, doesn’t rest enough. He’s allowed to think that now, to fuss even, rather than to hide it behind layers of casual flat sharing, unspoken best friends because even saying that was soppy, ridiculous. Heaven forbid anything more.

Now, however, he can make Hal eat and drink when he wakes up, stopping at a service station for supplies whilst Hal moans about how bleak it is. Next, they play imitating the sat nav lady in various voices, which Hal is much better than him at, eventually doing an impression of Henry Lancaster so good that they have to give up playing.

‘We should drive across America some day,’ Poins says, cruising down the fast lane. ‘Or maybe Europe, it’d be funnier if we didn’t even know what the signs said.’

After a pause, Hal responds.

‘You’d have to do all the driving, though.’

‘I don’t mind. I could force you to take time off, have a break, and in return, you can use your excessive wealth to keep us going.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hal says, but Poins isn’t certain it’s in response to what he said.

-

The meetings are so mundanely average that Hal almost forgets why he left London in the first place, until he leaves the second one to find Poins in the lobby of the office block, coffee in hand. He didn’t need publicity department babysitting for the actual meetings, and from what Hal can tell, Poins spent the whole time sussing out where to get the best caffeinated beverages from. The other guy grins at him.

‘You didn’t insult anybody’s accent, did you?’

Hal puts on an offended look.

‘I know how to be polite, you dick,’ he says, and takes one of the drinks. ‘What’s the plan now?’

‘Find somewhere to eat? You can choose,’ Poins promises as they walk out. It is for this reason that they end up at Nando’s, which Hal delights in, because he’s never been to one. Poins laughs at him, but then again, Hal thinks, it’s just cultural exchange: he takes Poins to fancy business dinners and in return, Hal’s allowed to eat spicy chicken and bottomless drinks.

‘There’s a little flag in my chicken,’ Hal exclaims, looking up in time to see Poins shaking his head affectionately. Once he’s also gotten both excited and confused about the frozen yoghurt (‘it’s endless, but why isn’t it ice cream?’), Poins has started to audibly despair. Hal just puts on what he thinks is the most adorable smile he can.

‘I feel like I’m doing good, taking the rich boy out to eat in a normal restaurant,’ Poins says as they leave. ‘Drink?’

They end up in the hotel room with drinks from the bar and a bottle of scotch from the supermarket, because Hal doesn’t want to get spotted in a pub like he’s having some kind of on the road bender instead of working. Poins nods, but Hal thinks he can see a hint of annoyance, whether at Hal or at the people who will assume that because Poins is there, Hal will drink irresponsibly, he’s not sure. He swigs at the scotch at the bottle and decides it’s probably him. Haunted by the good days, almost. Hal’s not even sure which ones were the good days: the Oxford ones, living a lie but a happy one, full of drinking and sex and spending too much time together; the flat-sharing ones, with the pretending and the denial, but all those nights out too; or, least likely, he assumes, these more recent ones, full of work and unspoken gaps, but also honesty.

Poins steals the bottle off him, sitting down on the bed right next to Hal in the process. He takes a gulp and hands it back. Hal, not wanting to be outdone, takes a longer one and grins.

‘So,’ says Poins, ‘getting drunk in a hotel room is an important part of travel, yes?’

‘Long as you can drive tomorrow, we can do anything,’ replies Hal with a smirk. 

This is it, the familiar and the new combined. New because they are older, wiser, more flawed, but at the same time, they have been here before, most notably in a hotel room in New York, underage drinking because if there’s one thing Hal can do, has always been able to do, it is find alcohol.

Hal wakes up with a familiar hangover and a very familiar body entangled with his. The whisky bottle is empty and Hal feels entirely content for a moment, before the worries return. It is not like before. Then, it was all part of some far off plan, with a conclusion that couldn’t hurt him just yet, so he could keep falling deeper and deeper in. He had never expected his father to die so soon, the stubborn bastard that he was, but he had, and Hal was both ready and not. Could take over the company; couldn’t leave Poins. Weeks of feeling like an empty shell not because his dad was dead, but because he had lost the person he needed most. Lost purposefully, like homework or clothes from an old relative.

He looks at the sleeping form beside him, the dark hair and pointed face and eyes that look far too good with eyeliner, and whispers.

‘Please forgive me.’

It is all he can say.

-

Poins is behind the wheel again, loaded with coffee and ibuprofen and a very clingy Hal. He’s not worked out why yet, but waking up to Hal handing him coffee that he’d made using the kettle in the room was an unexpected start to the day. They have at least four hours of travelling until they get to Edinburgh, where Hal has a meeting and a couple of interviews, but Poins still doesn’t mind. He plugs in his iPod and they sing along loudly to everything, shared years together meaning they know the lyrics to each other’s musical tastes as well as their own. Of course Poins’ iPod contains both. Nobody could expect Hal to bother to put music onto an iPod: Poins has always curated both their music tastes.

The countryside flashes past, so much more boring than the city in his eyes. Hal’s too, if his complete lack of interest in the passing Lake District is anything to go by. Once they’ve worn out singing, they sit in companionable quiet, music still playing on shuffle, until Hal starts to get bored and tap on things. Poins makes an opportune rest stop, giving Hal a chance to complain about the number of sheep rather than anything else, pacing the grassy verge where they’ve pulled over in a way that suggests that no, the impromptu karaoke did not sort out whatever was bothering him. Poins resolves to get to the bottom of it, but not whilst he’s also trying not to crash a Porsche into any of the many old people clearly conspiring to drive slowly right in front of him.

Hal starts tapping again, keeping it up almost ceaselessly from the Scottish border until Edinburgh, but Poins spaces out from the noise. He’s lived with much more annoying habits of Hal’s in the past: stealing the food or drink Poins was looking forward to, letting every stranger sleep on the floor of their flat (especially Jack, who sometimes would be there for days on end), and all sorts of more annoying ones (such as drinking whole cartons of milk in one go) that he would go through as if trying on outfits. Letting Hal’s bad habits go is a whole habit of Poins’.

Once in Edinburgh, they find their hotel easily enough with the help of Hal yelling over the sat nav with directions off the internet, putting him one step ahead of the woman’s voice he seems to hate. Poins has suspicions he might be letting out his emotions on the virtual person. Hal has an interview that afternoon, but apparently his new skittishness isn’t instantly dissolved by the thought of a public appearance, so Poins ends up organising him, sorting out a suit and tie and, eventually, standing with his hands on Hal’s shoulders, quietly pointing out that he needs to do this interview. Hal looks like a startled deer for a moment, then relaxes, forces the smile. Poins straightens Hal’s tie and holds back from asking what is wrong. Not now.

Poins goes with Hal to the hotel lobby where the journalist will be and sits at the adjacent table, pretending to check email on his laptop. He observes Hal, oozing his usual charisma, and muses over what’s wrong. Hal’s not just off, he’s forgetting bits of his act, even now; not saying the wrong things, but looking perceptibly, at least to Poins, nervous. Tiny flickers of Hal’s head confirm that he’s checking Poins is still there. The journalist won’t see it, will not realise that Hal isn’t at the top of his game. The public sees a much simpler version of Hal.

Eventually, it’s over, the journalist and Hal all smiles as they shake hands and say goodbye. Poins closes his laptop like it’s a happy coincidence and stands to leave with Hal, to get to the bottom of this before the next day and more people to talk to. The slips in Hal’s control are unnerving, like spotting glitches that shouldn’t be there.

‘Bit off with the act, eh?’ Poins mutters, out of the desire to broach the subject more than anything. Wrong move. Hal stops, eyes widening, and then suddenly, without a word, turns and disappears. Poins goes to follow, instinctively, but then a voice in his head tells him not to. Tells him to give Hal his space. Maybe the road trip thing was a bad idea.

-

The city and the dark and the cold air reassure Hal: they are familiar, even in a different city. He’s been walking for hours now, aimlessly walking with the safety of Google maps to get him back. Shivers run through his body, the suit jacket not enough to keep him warm, so he walks faster. Almost ready to return.

At first he had to flee, to escape the accusation that everything he does is pretending. That’s how he saw it: proof that Poins will always be aware that Hal lied, lied about everything, or so he must think. A liar, a pretender, someone not to be trusted. Some days, that’s how Hal sees himself. Other days, of course, he knows that he was clever and still is, knew how to play the system, to not be another boring cog in his father’s machine but a spark. The media appearances are a good sign: interest, excitement. People give a shit about Lancaster King.

That doesn’t matter all that much at this moment. Instead, Hal must atone, and prove himself to be who he really is, even if he usually gives off the impression that such a figure does not exist. He walked lost in his thoughts, slowly realising, with the help of a number of ignored phone calls and assorted texts ranging from ‘are you alright?’ to ‘god forbid Hal but I’ll tear this fucking city apart if something’s happened to you so reply now you wanker’, that perhaps Poins’ opinion wasn’t quite what he thought. He’s not sure what that means the guy’s opinion was, but perhaps it wasn’t utter hate and distrust, as he initially decided.

Now, he’s back in control, relatively. Not quite so certain he’s completely fucked everything up again. Hal’s moved onto wondering how he can make Poins forgive him, forgive him in the long term and know that Hal is not pretending. Not pretending to care.

When he gets back, however, he does not attempt these things. Finally, he checks the electronic map, finds a route back to the hotel, and stumbles inside, surprised by the warmth. He has to knock on their room door, not having brought a key, and finds himself pulled inside.

‘Ed…’ he whispers, not realising how hoarse his voice is.

‘Fuck Hal, you’re freezing.’

And then Hal doesn’t talk, doesn’t try and fashion all those thoughts into sentences, but instead lets himself be ushered into bed, the crucial point being that no longer, after all those years, do either of them have any qualms about Poins wrapping himself around Hal protectively like a physical manifestation of his earlier texts. No desperate sex, no excuses, nothing else. And Hal has no time to think that he will talk tomorrow, because he falls asleep almost instantly, far more tired than he realised.

In the morning they go down for breakfast like nothing happened. Hal’s back in media mode mindset, ready for meetings and another interview and some drinks thing he can’t even remember why he’s going to. He didn’t so much clear his head as remember to keep the act up. Poins looks at him anxiously but says nothing, so Hal doesn’t venture anything, other than a ‘I’m fine’ as they leave the hotel.

Hal sits through the meeting, an interview over lunch, and another meeting, running on auto-businessman like he got so used to over those months when he had nothing else. Sipping coffee and charming people and running ideas through his head at breakneck speeds to come to the best one as soon as possible. Thinking on your feet: useful skill for the director of a huge company, and also for a self-decided wayward son trying to fuck up his reputation as much as he can. People don’t appreciate the crossover of the two.

Still, another common factor is a need to protect Edward Poins, an instinct which kicks in the second he leaves meeting number two, for about a minute until he spots the guy loitering outside the building. Poins stands there, the wind blowing his hair and his arms wrapped around his body for warmth, and the desperate, clawing need to stop him leaving resurfaces in Hal, more potent than before. He strides over, determined.

‘Free cocktails?’ he opens with, because that’s their next stop.

‘You need to get changed first,’ says Poins, but with a smile. The other guy looks relieved, perhaps that Hal has remembered how to be a businessman again after the blip. They turn to start walking back to the hotel and Hal slips his hand against Poins’, entangling their fingers despite being able to feel the shock, even the panic, reverberating off the skin of the other guy.

Not the contact, not even in public, but the certainty, the complete and utter statement of it, that is what is novel, and Hal knows it well. In all the time since that public declaration, Hal’s now or never press conference, they’ve still held back slightly, if nothing else because they aren’t certain. They are together in public, quite openly, but they don’t casually walk down the road holding hands; it would be too much of a departure from how they are, how they were. The only time they’ve ever been so stereotypically together in public was those days in New York, free from all prying eyes and the truths of England. Of course then they weren’t anything then but Hal-and-Poins, uni duo who just happened to fuck each other senseless. Hal wishes he could have introduced them as that to at least one person, but sadly not.

He thinks about this as they walk, Poins noticeably relaxing after a while, as if reassured it was not a joke. The sensation, being so casual in public, is disconcerting, but Hal thinks he will be able to stop his skin itching with the need to stop being so exposed eventually. He just hopes his desperation isn’t showing.

-

Back in the car. Poins cannot decide if Hal’s any better or not; on the plus side, he’s remembered how to run the company like the upstart businessman he is, but on the other hand, he still seems off. He is grinning though, clutching takeaway coffee because rich boys don’t need to worry about their upholstery, and yapping on about their upcoming road trip of a day. This is the epic one: down to Oxford, stopping off in Lancaster for Hal’s impulsive need for photos next to a fitting sign and Blackpool because, in Hal’s words, he’s ‘never been there and that’s just terrible’. Poins, who went on a family holiday there when he was about nine, is less enthusiastic, but he likes seeing Hal acting like an overexcited child.

He especially likes it if it’ll stop Hal acting like a skittish deer, or whatever other simile accurately describes his behaviour. Poins was thrown by the hand-holding thing last night (it’s just not something they _do_ ), but he’s used to being thrown by Hal’s actions. Years spent playing along with whatever direction Hal goes in. It’s the furrowed brow, the worried looks, the not-quite-hidden nervousness that freaks Poins out more. Can’t be the company, he assumes, because that’d be big meetings and fervent phone calls, not clamming up and acting weird. That suggests emotions, something personal and true and unlike what Hal usually shows. Problem is, Hal’s actual emotions are usually about as easy to read as the Middle English Poins had to do for his degree: near impossible at first, a little easier with some pointers, but still take far too much time to make head or tail of them.

All is going well until about an hour and a half into their journey. To begin with, they joke around: it may only be half eight, but they are professionals now, not students or lazy buggers, so half eight is positively late, and perfectly good time for mocking everyone they know. Hal giggles (actually giggles, Poins feels he must note) about how certain Steven was that he’d say something stupid, doing more and more ridiculous impressions of the many briefings Steven gave him. Once ‘don’t swear at them, you idiot’ has got boring, Hal starts pointing out things he can see from the window, at which point Poins decides that his boyfriend definitely has the excitement level of a small child sometimes.

‘You’re an idiot,’ mutters Poins affectionally as Hal makes them miss a turning because he’s pointing at cows (‘I never knew there were so many fucking cows in the countryside!’ he had yelled).

‘You love me really,’ retorts Hal: the natural response to this banter, but apparently not for Hal, not today, because before Poins can respond with some further snark (or even a quiet ‘yeah’), Hal has suddenly turned on the music. Loudly, clearly a conversation stopper. Ke$ha blares through the spaces in the car and Poins wonders if they’ll ever have it out, or if it’ll take another four years.

-

Hal’s head is pounding and the music doesn’t help, but he refuses to turn it off. In any other situation, he’d disappear, or suggest drinking: whichever would suit the occasion better. With neither an option, he has opted for turning the Porsche into a tiny club. Clubs are great places to hide. Hal knows that personally.

Jokes are getting to him. Everything is getting to him, reminding him that he doesn’t deserve the guy sitting next to him, driving his car and trying not to sing along to ‘Tik Tok’. The ball of lead, burning lead, inside his stomach reminds him that he cannot lose Poins. It was his fault, but he cannot do it again. Hal stares at the dull grey tarmac outside the window and remembers the emptiness: empty flat, empty life. Empty bed, despite the lies they’d had to use before to share one. The only things filling the spaces were work, the fucking company that he pours his soul into, and the guilt. Guilt that has never left.

‘We’re here.’

Hal jerks out of his thoughts and looks at the sign in front of him. Lancaster. Perfect. He’s in such a photo op mood. Still, this is his life, putting on smiles, and he can do it now with no problem. Poins gets out the decent digital camera, chosen for its shitload of pixels or something Hal knows, but he left that to the relevant department to decide. Photos done; smile over.

Poins goes for doughnuts when they stop for fuel, and Hal gets a surge of guilt at the dejected look, the confusion. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. Hal aches to apologise, to never stop apologising, but it won’t work, because he’s done that before, and Poins has just shaken his head and said that it’s alright. It’s not. It can’t be. When Poins gets back, Hal chirps up, but Poins must be able to see it’s a lie.

‘Sorry,’ Hal says as they start driving again, covered in sugar from the doughnuts.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry.’

Silence. He doesn’t get it, Hal thinks, he doesn’t see that is what is wrong. That every apology must seem a lie, because Hal is made of them, lies and pretense, like a stick of fucking rock.

‘I know,’ says Poins finally, making Hal jump. They say nothing else on the subject, not for now. 

Instead, Hal starts spotting signs for Blackpool, failing to stop getting excited at the somewhat tacky resort. It’s raining, of course it is, but they drive around regardless, Poins grinning at Hal’s involuntary shouts at the faded fronts and unlit neon signs. Hal can’t explain it, the excitement, other than a remnant of his younger self’s need to appreciate everything his father would not. Henry would have hated Blackpool, that much is certain. They risk food poisoning and buy suspicious-looking burgers for lunch, eating them under a cover whilst Poins tells stories of his childhood visit and arguing with his sister about where sand comes from. After the burgers, they walk in the rain, laughing at how stereotypical they’re being.

‘We’re gonna fucking ruin the car, being this wet,’ offers Poins as they walk back. Hal looks down at his own drenched shirt and trousers, and Poins’ wet t-shirt sticking to his chest.

‘Better change then,’ replies Hal, ‘although personally, I think that looks good on you.’

‘Silly twat,’ says Poins and kisses him, right there in the rain, like a fucking romcom. They do change clothes though, Hal insisting on stupid tourist t-shirts from the one open shop to go with the actual spare clothes from their bags. He doesn’t admit how much he likes stupid souvenirs, the silly NY t-shirt from years ago or the random plastic tiara that apparently Poins not only kept after the night out that Hal wore it on, but took when Hal kicked him out and brought it back, putting it pride of place on a shelf in the living room when he moved into Hal’s new flat.

‘They won’t let us into Oxford wearing these,’ Poins says as they get into the car, gesturing at the t-shirts they are now wearing. ‘The city limits will literally be closed to us, like a forcefield.’

‘Strip off and sneak in, then, and bribe the city to let us in. I can’t do it, think of my image.’

They laugh, at the image and the excuse and the strange road trip that’s not really a road trip, and as they drive away, towards the south and the familiar, Hal notices that he’s not faking it. The happiness. For a moment, a stupid fucking moment in the rain, it was simple and happy. Two lost boys, a new place. He misses that.

But as they race down the M6 toll, Poins actually laughing in joy at the ability to speed in the Porsche on the huge expanse of road, the safety slips away. Oxford starts to beckon. They’ve been back, once, back in the old days of parties and revelry, to wander around and try not to feel truthful, to admit what had changed since then. Haunted by ghosts.

This time, as they approach the old city, Hal feels more nervous than he did on his first day at the place, moving in to move on from his family. He’s not sure why, exactly: the memories of the place aren’t bad, quite the opposite, but it was before. Before he was the awful cunt who chucked away the guy he loved because it was part of the plan. Hal can admit now, after hours and hours of travelling and panicking, that yes, he fucking loved him, and still fucking does. The swearing helps, makes it seem less vulnerable.

‘Oxford,’ declares Poins as they drive past the sign and toward the city centre. ‘City of dreaming spires and waking up hungover with you lying across me. Good times.’

-

Poins had wondered if Oxford would be the place for the confrontation, and he was not wrong. Early evening light bathes the city as they wander around aimlessly; only here to reminisce, a quick stop off before they go home. After seven or so hours in the car in one day, walking is a godsend, so it takes a while before Hal suggests they find dinner. They head in the direction of a pub, an infamous tourist trap that they brave regardless, ordering food and pints of cider like they used to and sitting there in their stupid t-shirts feeling the force of time, even only a few years.

‘Makes me think of graduation,’ says Poins, ‘being in the city again.’ 

‘What a waste of time that was,’ laughs Hal. ‘Philippa loved it, though.’

‘She was my guest, not yours. Claimed she didn’t care about you graduating, she would cheer me on.’

‘You deserved someone to cheer you on,’ Hal remarks. Poins’ own family wouldn’t come, his dad having kicked him out and his mum not forceful enough to go. Henry, in a shock turn of events, did want to go, although looked disapproving throughout, clearly aware of the myriad of rumours his son had accumulated during his three years there. Poins had stood awkwardly afterwards for all of a second until Hal pulled him over, let him be showered with the Lancaster sisters’ chatter and Hal’s proud ‘he was so close to a first, y’know’ to anyone who would listen (Poins can’t help but attribute at least some of that to the fact that by third year, his life was Hal, so when Hal wasn’t the distraction, nothing was). ‘You still do.’

‘What?’

‘Deserve someone to think you’re awesome,’ Hal elaborates, looking suddenly sad.

‘And you don’t think it?’ says Poins incredulously. It’s not ego, it’s logic. That, and a lot of drunken declarations.

‘Of course I do, but it’s not enough. I’m not.’

‘Enough?’ The pieces are starting to fall together now.

‘You know what I did.’

‘And I came back,’ Poins points out, ‘because you asked.’ 

At that moment, their food arrives, steak and chips. Hal pauses, and Poins watches him intently, because he is not letting this go, not now it’s out in the open.

‘But-’ 

Here Hal falters, as if he doesn’t want to form the next words. Poins waits, refusing to drop eye contact.

‘-but...how can you ever forgive me?’

And there, spread out like a horribly exposed double page spread in a newspaper, is the true. Poins sees it now: the panic, the jumping between seeing happy and acting as if someone was about to set him on fire.

‘This is what’s been up with you? You don’t think I can forgive you?’

‘Well, yeah.’ Hal pauses again. Poins starts to eat, trying not to stop watching Hal regardless, who himself seems to have forgotten the food. When Hal speaks again, it’s almost a whisper, only just audible amongst the sounds of the pub. ‘It was fucking awful, back then, and I don’t know if I can go back, but I don’t know how to make it up to you either.’

The confession comes out quickly, words upon words upon words. Awkward, uncertain. Poins feels like someone has shoved him over: off-balance, but desperately wanting to right it. Of course he knew Hal hadn’t been living the greatest life during that period (he’d seen the state of the lifeless flat, even the lifeless eyes when Hal forgot to inject spark into them), but he’d not quite realised that the guy is as reluctant to return to that point as he himself is. That, even more importantly, Hal doesn’t think he can ever make up for casting Poins off.

‘What if we discuss it?’ he says.

‘Discuss what?’

‘Why you did it.’ Hal stares at him, actual terror in his eyes. ‘I mean, I know it was the plan, you know I knew that for years, but that’s the point. You thought you had to do it?’

‘Of course,’ says Hal quickly, ‘That was the only way to take over the company, to complete the image turnaround. No ties to the past, but also, nothing good, maybe. I couldn’t be Hal anymore, I couldn’t have the guy who watched out for Hal still around.’

‘But that didn’t work?’ Poins prompts, wondering how on earth he can tell what to say next. Magic, perhaps, or having spent far too long with Hal.

‘I didn’t cast off who I was, I hid it. You don’t throw a whole identity away, you just patch it over with another and hope the gaps don’t show. I was Harry Lancaster, director of the company, and Hal, hiding underneath. Missing stuff.’ Another pause, which Poins can’t tell is nerves or dramatic effect. ‘You.’

‘Listen to yourself. Why will I forgive you? Why did I? Because, you idiot, you did an utter dickhead thing to do, but it hurt you as much as me. I forgive you because you made it right, you came and found me, even though that messed up the plan.’

‘But I shouldn’t have done it in the first place,’ Hal protests, and Poins shakes his head in despair.

‘Of course not, but you did. Can’t change that. Guess what? I could’ve ran years ago, could’ve gotten out when I saw what you seemed to be doing, self-preservation or whatever, but I didn’t, so I’m not going anywhere now.’

Poins finishes the mini speech by kicking Hal’s foot under the table and smiling. Hal looks shocked, a little bit like someone’s dunked him in water.

‘You twat,’ Poins adds, ‘you’re the confident, successful director of a huge company, yet you don’t see the obvious. I chose you over my family, over a career, over everything. I had to think before I came running back: I couldn’t deal with being fucked over again, couldn’t go back to that again either. I weighed it up and I forgave you, then, before I even came back.

‘But I-’

‘List your faults all you want: I know them all. Still forgiven.’ Hal nods tentatively. ‘Now, eat your bloody food before it goes cold.’

Hal blinks, and picks up his fork. Poins lets out a relieved laugh, because he had no clue what he was doing. He didn’t quite get into the fact that he has a pretty obvious blind spot, and that spot is ‘the problems with Hal Lancaster’. Manipulative, lying, devious, reckless: all traits Poins does not, or no longer, cares about. He himself is pretty adept at a fair few of the list, whether or not by way of Hal, he is not entirely sure. It would take a lot more work than that parting over a year ago to extricate his life from that of Hal, even more so now.

For better or for worse, Hal Lancaster is stuck with Ed Poins for good now.

-

Hal stands, staring up at the dark shape of the Radcliffe Camera looming in the dark evening, and feels Poins grab his hand. There are not words to express Hal’s current feelings: relief, tinged with the paranoia he will not be able to get rid of, possibly ever, but at least until he’s thought about it more, and an overwhelming gratitude for the existence of the idiot standing next to him.

‘Home now?’ Poins asks.

‘About that,’ says Hal, ‘you remember how I said it wasn’t a road trip?’

‘And then gave an itinerary entirely made of driving? Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, I left off the last stop. We need to get a plane tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting, and of course I need you there.’

Poins stares at him through the darkness.

‘Where?’

‘Paris.’

‘You’ve got a meeting with the French? Can you even speak French?’

‘No, but they invented translators, you know. And then we can do tourist things, I can buy some Eiffel Tower tat, it’ll be great.’

‘You don’t need to sell it to me.’

‘Just checking.’

He hears Poins sighing.

‘Couldn’t you fucking check about the bigger things, like whether I’ve forgiven you, and not about if I like the sound of going to Paris in the morning?’

‘I’ll remember that next time,’ says Hal with a grin.

‘Just assume that I’m good with all surprise holidays, in fact. Okay?’

‘Fine. How about Vegas, we could go to Vegas?’

‘I wasn’t asking for one.’

‘No, you’re right, maybe we could save that for a honeymoon…’

Poins’ head snaps round faster than when Hal suggested a holiday in the first place.

‘What?’

‘Just a thought.’

Hal smiles to himself as they head off back to the car, back to London and bed and then Paris. One day, he thinks, one day. And maybe he won’t even be too fucking scared.


	7. Five Times Hal Thought He Heard Poins' Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because it is strangely easy to hear 'Poins' everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Written at the request of alichay, because she does the same as Hal. Usual warnings for alcohol drinking. Set at various points, hopefully it should be relatively obvious for each part.

1.

Harry Lancaster is listening; Hal is not. The whiplash change has been so fast that even weeks later, he’s biting his lip not to introduce himself as Hal. Otherwise, the shoes were relatively easy to slip into: a fresh face with a monumental task. The new businessman is listening intently and nodding occasionally as a woman named Marissa talks about corporate restructuring. Hal, meanwhile, is exhausted, too many sleepless nights catching up on every inch of the company taking their toll. He knows that in the corner, a secretary is taking down detailed minutes, so he does not actually need to listen.

Instead, he thinks about how they have presented Henry’s death: bereaved son, apologising for his past but ready to reform; company soldiering on, following the inspiration of their former boss; tributes, but not lingering, because the future is where the money lies. Putting on care, the right sort of care, the type that is outward not inward. Balancing the line between respectful and hypocritical. Hal wonders if Poins has seen any of Lancaster King’s public statements about Henry and Hal, or if he’s kept well away from such things. Poins knows the act, knew the act; he won’t think Hal is a hypocrite, if he has seen Hal’s apparently contrite words.

Hal focuses his attention next upon some high profile clients he has to meet with over the next few days to reassure that the excellent quality service of Lancaster King is continuing, and to charm them to stick with the company into the next era. He can read meeting minutes at home, in the spaces of time between getting home later and barely sleeping, but playing the businessman must be prepared for. Casual laugh, flick of the head, tad of self-deprecation: years of charming strangers in bars and making everyone feel privileged to be hanging out with Hal Lancaster has come in handy. Give them attention, but not too much. Make them want to come back for more, whether more is another night of ill-advised alcohol and Jack’s dancing, or another meeting to seal the business deal. Follow the formula. Win the day.

‘All this points-’

Poins? Hal’s brain yells ‘what’ and jolts into gear, panicking that he was actually thinking aloud and somebody is calling him out on the formulaic process that didn’t quite work in a few instances. Mostly in one. Too early for the act to have reached full steam, those days at university when it was all about creating the reputation, being everything his father did not want in a son. The drinking, the scraping by with work, and then, unintentionally, as if the universe wanted to help Hal on his way, the state school best friend. Befriended because Hal would try to charm everyone, but found himself charmed in return, by the grinning, daring guy; no longer grinning, Hal could only think, or maybe he is, maybe he wanted to get out of the mess they’d continued on for so long.

Hal is caught staring at the woman, Marissa, brain anxiously drafting excuses, but after a moment, he realises that she has continued on talking, nobody has expected him to say anything, and only one or two of the others in the room are looking at him, perhaps worried the new boss is going to bollock them for something.

He goes to tap his fingers on the table, but stops himself, remembers that Harry would not do that. Instead, he settles for listening carefully to the rest of Marissa’s words, and the words of those who speak after her, because he cannot afford another mishearing. Next time he might react more visibly or, even worse, verbally. Telling a table of employees not to blame him for Poins might go down as the first act in a line of career-ruining ones. That is not what he’s here for.

 

2.

The world blurs in front of his eyes, but still Hal pulls Poins towards him and shouts over the music.

‘I- I’m gonna get- get drinks,’ he eventually gets out, finding it difficult to concentrate on forming words and just as hard getting his tongue to twist into them. His usually quite impressive tolerance has been tested by the strange mixture of alcohol collected at a gathering in a rugby player’s room before going out, with a variety of people Hal could only assume were secretly bartenders from the spirits they brought. Getting invited to such gatherings is Hal’s skill by now, the seasoned third year he is; then all he has to do is bring Poins along and they’re ready to start the night. Tonight they drank rum and strange liqueurs and rosé wine and kissed hungrily down a deserted corridor, alcohol and lust and that slight chance of getting found out.

Now, Hal has reached the perfect level of completely smashed for him to believe that more drinks are always needed. The crowd heave and sway, mostly unaware of Hal blindly and wildly pulling himself through their sea and towards the bar. Here, his height comes in handy, a towering force with flailing limbs. Leaning against the sticky bar, he stares at the bartender, trying to create the right words.

‘Sambuca shots. Two.’

The guy nods, fills plastic shot glasses, and says a price Hal does not catch. There’s nothing in his wallet but twenty pound notes, so he hands one over dramatically.

‘Not got any coins?’ asks the bartender, words just about sounding over the music.

‘Poins? Yes, I have Poins, he’s over there.’ Hal points and turns and, sure enough, there is Poins approaching. Hal looks proud to have been correct. The bartender shakes his head and counts out change, handing it over just as Poins reaches.

‘Do you wan’ some money?’ Hal slurs at his friend, holding out a ten pound note and a bunch of coins.

‘Not a charity case,’ says Poins, but he’s grinning drunkenly and he pockets the money, before picking up his own shot of sambuca. They down their shots, then Poins grabs Hal’s arm. ‘C’mon, let’s dance.’

‘Wait, Poins,’ Hal says, putting as much demand as is possible when that drunk. ‘That guy didn’t believe I had you, I had to tell him.’ Poins nods like it’s a very serious matter. ‘I said “there, look, that’s my Poins” and then he knew.’

‘Glad you sorted it out.’ Poins sways and grabs onto Hal, then gestures wildly with one hand. ‘Now, sweet Hal, dancing time.’

The next morning, amidst hangovers and the question of why they both had changed into some of the ugliest of Hal’s t-shirts to sleep in, they both vaguely remember something about Hal saying ‘my Poins’, but neither can recall enough to work out quite why.

 

3.

Shoppers swarm in front of Hal, chatting amiably or shouting at children or shoving their way past others. He asks himself, not for the first time that day, what he’s doing on Regent Street a week before Christmas, but he will only answer with the truth: last day Poins is at his stupid advertising job before the holidays, and he needs to find the guy some presents before he’s around all the time, willing to watch shitty films and pretend festivity is something that happens, for the most part, to other people. Presents, however, must occur, in between Christmas drinking and being visited by those of Hal’s siblings who think he is worth seeing.

Hal would buy Poins anything he wanted, but unfortunately that is not how gift-giving works. Instead, he buys niche alcohol and a glitter-covered t-shirt, a new iPod and a pair of devil horns he’s not quite why it was possible to buy in late December. What do you buy the flatmate you know intimately, but must pretend not to know as well as you do?

It’s difficult, the unspoken line between them, the boundary that means that at home they are flatmates and little else (slip ups can occur), that occasionally Hal can sleep with someone else, female or male, and feel nagging guilt as he does so, but know that his presentation needs it, that he needs it if he’s going to ever escape from Poins, as he must do. London is not Oxford; London is for the image, whereas Oxford was for the groundwork, the going out and drinking and watching as Poins became a feature of his side. It is difficult to remember when your flatmate pulls a face of forced indifference when he is confronted with someone un-Hal-shaped leaving Hal’s room whilst he makes his morning coffee. Their morning coffee, for Hal cannot work the machine.

A yell from behind, indistinct, and Hal swears it must have sounded like Poins, Ed, anything similar, so he spins, expecting to be caught out on his present buying, on his very thoughts, but there’s no one, no one that he’s looking for at least, just people, and god knows, Hal meets a lot of them.

His image cannot withstand much more of this solitary shopping, so he ducks into one last store, stands for a moment wondering if it is crossing a line to buy a friend underwear, decides it isn’t, and picks out the most garishly coloured boxers he can find, sniggering to himself at Poins’ likely face when he opens the package before remembering that Poins will actually wear them. Hal bought them as a present; why wouldn’t he? Hal pays, all the while needing to get out, get some air. He wishes Poins was there.

 

4.

Tom rambles on and on, and Hal is barely listening: he can see the flat with his own eyes, he doesn’t need Tom’s estate agent ramble about why it is so great. His brother is taking the father-sanctioned option, first flat and start at the company, whilst Hal dicks around at university. Or so he knows his father thinks, even if Henry polishes it up in public and talks about his eldest son being at Oxford. If Hal’s present, this is his cue to take out his phone, scowl, and generally look as little like a good little posh son as he can.

‘...and you see this room adjoins…’

Hal cuts Tom off.

‘Did you just say-’ Tom is staring at him in confusion. ‘No, you didn’t, you just continued wittering on and I misheard you.’ He grins. ‘It’s nice, all the...adjoining and shit.’

Tom doesn’t drop his gaze.

‘What did you think I said?’ he asks curiously. Hal thinks, quickly, making rhymes in his head and trying not to mouth them.

‘That...the room...has...loins,’ Hal says finally, twisting his face into something vaguely apologetic. Sorry for being the strange older brother, you don’t need to invite me again, etc: a whole litany in one awkward look. 

Tom raises his eyebrows but moves on, eighteen years old and already excited about natural light and welcoming rooms. He has clearly memorised some description of the flat. It’s all Hal can do not to laugh in his brother’s face and point out that he lives in a student room; his home for the upcoming year, he knows, has a slanting attic roof and probably an inexplicable draught coming from somewhere. Last year his room was so small him and Poins managed to crash the desk chair into the wardrobe and take a chunk out the door (they were otherwise occupied, and later Poins came up with the brainwave of colouring in the new scar on the wood brown to match the varnish and stop it being noticeable).

The tour is completed with a look at the shiny bathroom, which Hal can think of literally no comments about so opts for asking for a drink rather than pretending to like the silver taps. It is not that Tom is boring as much as he has found what he wants in life and it is very different to who Hal is right then. Maybe when he gets his own flat, doesn’t return each break to the old family home and spend most of his time sleeping or going out to avoid Henry, he will get excited about colours and fitting and other things he thinks Tom has mentioned. For now, he gulps down a glass of water and tells Tom about New York, leaving out almost every actual detail of his trip.

After regaling his brother with a description of the Empire State Building that leaves Tom’s exaltation of the kitchen he doesn’t really know how to use sounding like an exciting monologue, Hal looks down at his phone, the modern equivalent of the watch, and puts on a sigh. Time for some well-placed truth.

‘Look, Tom, I must dash, I told Poins I’d be around to call when he’s back from some family meal. Think, they’re going to ask him what he’s doing with his life. There might not even be proper alcohol!’

The dramatics are somewhat ruined by the fact that Tom simply nods, then, as Hal moves to leave, says, ‘You thought I said Poins, didn’t you?’

Hal gapes comically, almost swaying on his feet.

‘You...how...you don’t-’

‘Notice things? I’ve been shadowing people in the company for the last two months, it’s good practice, plus it’s not that amazing. For someone who doesn’t talk about anyone ‘cept in vague terms, you mention him a hell of a lot, and it’s not like “adjoins” sounds like much else.’

‘Except loins,’ points out Hal, still reeling at the idea that his eighteen year old brother noticed such a detail. Tom laughs.

‘Go, piss off out of my flat and talk to your best friend.’

Hal goes to leave again.

‘And you idiot, why did you think I believed the “loins” thing?’

Hal wonders when Tom got so much like John. Maybe he really is the odd brother.

 

5.

Another night, just like the last, except not quite. Slacker students that they are, they’re out again, third time this week; essays are written in the gaps between hangovers and hanging out. Second year is the time for humanities students, free from the threat of exams, to live the life not to write home about or, in Hal’s case, to shove riotously in your father’s face. Not this exact bit, however: not under the flashing lights, with the tightly pressed bodies, the repetitive beat, and the reckless abandon that serves as cover. Poins, covered in eyeliner and glitter like he usually is when they bother about their going out appearances, is barely centimetres away, missing the beat sometimes with what can only be purpose, grinning wickedly when their bodies collide more than before.

Someone grabs at Hal’s arm and he spins around. People from college, friends in the sense that Hal has a great many friends, ask if he’s having a good night, the classic club greeting. He nods, mirrors their question back to them, and when he looks back, Poins is gone. No big deal. They lose each other all the time on nights like these, full of familiar faces and daunting tides of people. Eventually they’ll crash back into each other. Hal dances with the newcomers and drinks half a bottle of beer he is offered by one of the girls, despite having no clue why she’s giving it to him. 

Certain he’s tumbling down the hill towards sobriety, Hal waves at the others and heads off to the toilet, planning to go for a piss and then hunt down Poins. The night, although early, is uninteresting, and he feels reconvening in one of their rooms would be a much better plan. He’s less afraid of the more sober nights now, the ones where sleeping, actual sleeping, together afterwards is a choice rather than a drunken necessity.

The toilets are grimy, made of flaking paint and stains Hal doesn’t want to think about. He’s about to leave when he hears a moan from a stall in the corner. Usually, this would make him hurry more rapidly to the exit, but this time it is followed by the last name he wants to hear in the scenario, unless it is him making it: _Ed_. No, his ever-sobering brain says rationally, it’s a common name, especially at a university full of people called twattish names like Edward (Poins is the exception, of course, and he is Poins, or even sometimes the currently hated Ed). Do not panic, Hal’s brain says, but he feels sick and angry all at once. Poins, his Poins, unarticulated but still painfully true.

Somehow resisting the urge to march over and find out if he should be panicking, he instead strides out the door, trying to regulate his breathing. He can barely see, lights flashing before his eyes that may or may not be the club, so by the time he notices Poins standing against the wall just outside the toilets, he’s been raging for a good few seconds.

‘They said you’d gone in there, so I just waited,’ shouts Poins through the racket of the club, looking surprised as Hal doesn’t respond but instead grabs hold of him, wrapping his arms round his friend with a kind of grim relief.

‘Leaving, now,’ says Hal finally, once he’s finished what can only be described as a hug, to the embarrassment of both of them. Poins does not ask, does not question, simply nods and follows. They step out into the cold night air, nippy even for May, and Hal grins, only half fake.

‘Race you back.’

And so they skip along the streets, concrete and cobbled, and Hal runs off the fear and the panic and the realisation that such an event, were it to happen, would rip out his guts and leave him weak. He takes the realisation and rolls it into a ball, throws it away into the deepest recess of his mind so that it is long hidden by the time they reach Poins’ door, panting heavily and battling to be the first to get Poins’ key into the lock because the race still has all to play for. Hal still has everything to play for.

 

-

+1

Hal does not hear words. His brain ticks, fidgets, and then he’s thinking of inconsequential things, like should he be thinking about whether he left an appliance on, or would that be too clichéd? Nothing feels real, as almost every instinct tells him to run, run far away, to not believe he can do this. After everything that he’s done, this is maybe the one thing he can’t. Luckily, one instinct, a rational voice tutting in what he’s fairly sure is Poins’ voice, is pointing out that he can. Don’t be a dick, the voice says, don’t be a coward. Then he hears echoes of the past, Jack calling Poins a coward and Poins hurling insults until the pair were snarling at each other, Hal standing between them. Poor old Jack. A face not here, of course, or at least waiting outside because this is not a big thing, but Doll and Minnie are. They had to come.

Words echo in Hal’s brain, making little sense through the haze of thoughts. He tries to follow them, fails, and then feels someone kick his foot.

‘Hal,’ hisses Poins quietly, ‘she said our names, we have to do the vows bit, remember?’

Hal snaps back to reality, to the register office and Poins’ berating look and behind him, Philippa grinning as one of their two witnesses. Later, in the restaurant and bar Hal has hired entirely because it was far cooler than anywhere they could actually get married, they will sit drunkenly on the bar and make terrible speeches and Hal will wonder why he was worried at all. People will argue and Poins’ dad will leave early and it will be the mess it should. For now, however, they have to do the marrying bit.

‘That’s weird,’ Hal whispers back as they step forward, ‘I usually hear your name everywhere.’


	8. The Best Laid Plans (Are Not Ones Poins Appreciates)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hal gets kidnapped. Poins panics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the kidnapping fic that has been long in the works, after I answered a character relationship meme question months ago about what they'd do if the other was kidnapped. Huge thanks to alichay for working through the plot with me, and also to you few people who still read this, you are wonderful.
> 
> This is set when they are 28, which makes it about four years after Poins starts working at the company. I'm always happen to explain timeline stuff if it doesn't make sense, I forget that people don't know what's going on in my brain!
> 
> Warnings for abduction and minor injuries. If you think others apply, please let me know and I'll put them here!

Poins is sitting at his desk when he finds out. After the whole ordeal is over, he will wonder if everything would’ve gone differently if someone had taken him aside and broke the news to him gently. It is difficult to tell. He is typing absentmindedly, filling out yet another appraisal of the company’s weekly media coverage, a task second nature after years of practice. Four lines in a column in the FT; internet commentators questioning the future of an offshoot of an offshoot; BBC correspondent insulting their years-old logo on Twitter. It is a far cry from the old days of the publicity department, before Poins’ time at the place of course: now, the biggest Hal-based scandal they’ve had recently was the announcement early on a Monday that he’d got married that weekend, quietly, and the press hadn’t been told until afterwards (by which point, neither Hal or Poins were in the country, but were abreast of situation thanks to Hal’s trying to control of the company even from another continent).

‘Holy shit,’ says Steven, head of publicity, in a loud but toneless voice. Poins lifts his head, ready to combat whatever news story has broken. Steven is standing outside his office, looking out over the heads of his employees, and there are no clues as to what has caused the outburst. ‘There’s a message, photo and everything. It’s real.’

Everybody stares at him, waiting, but Steven says nothing, apparently too shocked to remember to keep going with the announcement.

‘What?’ somebody shouts finally.

‘Hal.’ As soon as Poins hears the syllable (used universally throughout the office despite Hal going by Harry on company documentation), his heartbeat quickens, dread appearing in the second before Steven continues. ‘He’s been kidnapped. We’ve got to keep this quiet. The press cannot get hold of it.’

Poins barely hears these orders. His brain thinks _funny it’s called kidnapped when he’s not a child_ and then it ceases to operate in such coherence. The room starts to spin, but he’s on his feet, lurching slightly like he’s drunk, making his way to the bathroom based on sheer memory of the direction his feet must take him. He can’t breathe, he can barely see. Hal. The tiles are slippery beneath his shoes. He grabs at a sink for balance, but his hands are too weak to hold on and he crashes to the floor. Poins sits, shivering and shaking, trying to focus his mind. He must do something. The Lancaster King logo glares down at him from a sign on the wall, a beacon keeping him here, in the moment. After sitting for an amount of time he cannot determine, he is finally able to unsteadily raise himself to his feet.

The bathroom is thankfully still empty (probably because it is situated on the floor made of employees currently trying to create a media blackout, although Poins does not think of this). He stares into the mirror, at his wide eyes and sweaty face. Despite still feeling chilled, he splashes cold water on his face in an attempt to look less panicked. He must keep it together to enact his plan. The plan he has not thought up as of yet, the plan that involves saving Hal before his kidnappers realise company policy is unlikely to give them the huge sum of money that they will undoubtably want. The specifics can be worked out on the way, he decides as he neatens his tie and runs a hand through his hair. Hal’s the one who makes the plans; Poins is finding it difficult not to just go yell at somebody that they’d better find Hal or he’ll do something drastic.

Stepping out of the bathroom into the hubbub of the office, Poins sees that things are being done. People are shouting down phones, at each other, across the room in the hope someone is listening. Damage limitation is going on, because that is what the publicity department does. The actual event does not matter; it is what is being said about it. Usually, that is Poins’ domain too. Not today. Today is for action. Quietly, unobtrusively, he walks through the office, still a little shaky.

‘-still no demand yet-’

‘-apparently they’re waiting for something-’

‘-if any of the national papers-’

‘-internet’s a bigger threat-’

He catches the snippets of information he needs, then returns to his desk. A half-finished mug of coffee waits, cold by now. He can feel the eyes of those around turning toward him. They will be wary, watching out for him to do something rash, but they don’t know how it feels, he thinks, adrenaline carrying his lead-filled body forward, initial panic subsided into blind focus. Slowly, he gathers his things, as if having a calm, measured reaction to the news. People try to speak to him, but he ignores them, putting on his suit jacket over his creased shirt. If Hal did that, Poins would tut and shake his head. Only that morning, Poins recalls, Hal had fumbled with his ridiculously expensive watch, unable to do up the catch for minutes whilst Poins laughed at him, asking how a company director could have trouble with his own shiny and ostentatious watch. Every day there’s something: tie, cufflinks, undone shirt button, messy hair. It’s like a ritual of theirs. Poins helps to perfect those little details in the businessman look, same as he always did with the party boy one.

Jacket on, phone and keys and wallet safely in pocket. Checking the latter three are automatic. Poins is ready. He glances around, checking that nobody is watching him too intently, then weaves his way round the desks and into the corridor. It is calmer, suggesting the kidnapping news has not made its way through the building just yet. Soon, Poins is standing outside Hal’s office, having sent Hal’s PA Karen off on a fake errand, mostly achieved through the virtue of being her boss’ significant other (as at least one article has called him, like ‘partner’ too businesslike and ‘husband’ too domestic for the suited and sleek man in the accompanying photo).

He eyes the lock, door closed, and takes a key from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Despite a high tech office, Hal still has a good old fashioned lock and key for his office, probably just for effect, and Poins has a key, ‘in case of emergencies’, which had made him laugh at the time (‘You won’t allow any emergencies,’ he’d said. ‘Not at the company at least.’). Poins unlocks the door, enters, and closes it quickly behind him. Far too spy-like, but he doesn’t want anybody asking what he’s doing. Not looking for clues, for Hal clearly wasn’t kidnapped from here, but looking for plans. There is no public general company policy on abduction (he knows this not only from work, but from the weekends Hal has decided to go over the entire company policy documentation to make minor changes that interest no one but him and that one person from the legal department he always convinces to approve them).

Poins has a hunch, however. He flicks on the light and looks around the room devoid of Hal. Not how the office should be. The desk is minimalist, neat as always. Coffee machine on the side table. It would appear to have very little of the personal touch, which is exactly how Hal wants it, but to Poins and perhaps Poins alone, it is in fact very much Hal. 

The style, shiny and efficient, is the same as their flat, just without the lived in look, the detritus of everyday living. The amount of coffee needed to keep Hal running throughout the day is high, so the machine isn’t just a gesture that he prefers it to a decanter, or wants people to think so. There may be a lack of personal items, photos and suchlike on display, but if the top desk drawer is opened (as Poins does now), there can be found a casino chip (also known as a piece of plastic that probably enjoyed the flight back from Las Vegas more than its owner), a note in Poins’ handwriting, and, under spare pens and business cards with numbers and notes scribbled on the back, a photo of two guys, aged about twenty, with shining eyes and matching bright gold t-shirts that the camera does not quite convey the true hideousness of. On their foreheads are written each other’s names, part of a drinking game that nobody understood even at the time of playing.

Poins rolls his eyes at the picture and closes the drawer. Underneath is the one more likely to be useful, containing a stack of documents too important to be hackable on Hal’s laptop. The top one is a copy of the old Lancaster King file on Hal himself, but beneath are descriptions of what Henry wanted from the company after his death, a clearly-not-enacted plan of what to do if he disinherited Hal, several outlandish ideas for company expansion into areas such as ‘our own brand of vodka’, and then, Poins discovers, a file labelled only ‘in case of emergency’ in Hal’s handwriting.

It looks promising. Sitting down in Hal’s desk chair, he opens the file. The top sheet is clearly initial notes, scrawled on a scrap of paper. Poins reads ‘If he is kidnapped, do EVERYTHING FUCKING POSSIBLE to get him back. If they want the company, at least consider it. Fuck it, hire MI5, if they’ll take the case.’ and stops, realising almost instantly what the emergency being described is. He feels sick. It is impossible not to keep reading, to skim through the ever more outlandish suggestions handwritten by Hal (at least half of the people suggested to help are fictional) and then turn to the next page, the start of the officially typed up document that has, according to the heading, only been shared with two other people in the company, who are authorised to enact its contents without Hal’s permission as soon as there is any hint that something has happened to Ed Poins. It is barely less overblown that Hal’s notes. There is a carefully worded subclause that Poins is almost certain refers to getting a contract killer for those responsible. At the end, it is signed and dated over two years ago.

His breathing quickens. He had, inevitably, been thinking similar thoughts himself, but more in a ‘I’ll fucking kill them’ angry way rather than a ‘I’ve officially given people sanction to probably murder them and hide the bodies’ way. Additionally, there is no corresponding document to explain what to do if Hal is kidnapped.

Poins does not know how to react. He slips the file back into the drawer and leaves Hal’s office. All his brain can think about is the words, cold and efficient, explaining that if Poins is taken, Hal must not be allowed to do anything for the company until he is back. He has delegated the task of keeping control to Tom and John if the occasion arises. Hal Lancaster, who only leaves London if he can talk to the office multiple times a day on the phone, does not trust himself to run his own company in such a scenario.

Blindly, Poins stumbles down the corridor, not certain what he is doing. Ahead, Steven appears, walking rapidly towards him.

‘Go home,’ Steven’s voice commands, and Poins neither argues nor responds. This is not because Steven is his boss; this is because he is unable to decide for himself. He needs a plan, and he cannot make one here, like this. Poins makes his way to the stairs, because he has, for the moment, forgotten the existence of lifts.

 

-

 

At home, he paces. He thought it was a stereotype until faced with the situation himself: now, it is survival. Pace, or open the bottle of whisky on the side, and he needs his head clear if he’s to work out anything. Who? There is no obvious single answer. Hal is extremely rich; Hal does not believe in personal security. Too long stumbling the city streets at night, feeling invincible. Until the ransom demand, there is surely little new they can discover: untraceable message, photo he’s not seen a copy of, and the absence of a company director. Poins keeps pacing, convinced he must know something useful that the others don’t.

It is true that the media must not find out. This is not news. They must hold off it becoming a story for as long as possible. No breaking news, no press intrusion, no accidentally miscommunicated messages that endanger Hal. Poins will not let anybody get in the way.

He looks around the living room and sees nothing that helps. The same things left there that morning by him and Hal. He flicks through his phone contacts, wondering if anybody has anything useful, and then he remembers that he - they - used to know people who knew people who knew what was going on, in the city and on the streets. A few calls, he thinks, and maybe he could find out something, just a whisper. He has no clue how to go about it, only used to minor thievery and trickery back in the old days, not getting information on abduction and possibly more active requests. His mind darts back to the file, Hal preempting his own desperation, not trusting his own brain. Poins had never thought of such a situation, not seriously, because kidnapping was always about as real to him as having to fight off dragons. Now, he’s wondering if he might’ve preferred the dragon. At least he would’ve known what was going on.

Just as he’s about to dial Doll’s number, assuming she’d be the best person to ask who to call next, his phone rings. Steven, the screen says.

‘Ed, you’ve got to get back here,’ Steven says without greeting. ‘There’s a ransom demand now, we thought you’d want to see.’

 

-

 

Steven was not wrong. Poins wanted to see the grainy seconds of video followed by the demand printed on the screen more than anything. Afterwards, however, he almost wishes he hadn’t. Hal is alive, breathing, waving to the camera as instructed, but there is a bruise on his face that makes Poins want to punch the screen in front of him. The top people in the department are gone, doing their jobs, but those remaining had watched him watching the footage, breath held, waiting to see what he’d do. They wait now, still, even after it has played through four times before his eyes. Four repeats of the huge, but achievable, sum of money. He breathes deeply, hands shaking. He wants to run, but he doesn’t know where Hal is.

‘They’re going to pay up,’ pipes up a woman from behind him. Poins recognises the voice: she’s new, only been working there a few months, perhaps not as aware as most of the department of how much Ed Poins must be treated carefully right now. Not like the old hands, working at Lancaster King for years, the ones who saw the press photos with the costumes and the glitter, the father’s shame and the sidekick’s help with that. The transformation, the reunion, the strange fact that an averagely important member of the publicity department knows about almost every going on in the company. Everybody knows about him and Hal, saw the wedding press release and noticed that afterwards the director went on holiday for an unprecedented length of time; not as many know that behind the company director is a man with a short temper who has given up far too much for Hal to stop now.

Her words should be reassuring, but they are not. Instantly, Poins’ brain (which kindly chooses this moment to reengage with the thinking up ideas alongside the panicking) asks what then is going to make them give Hal back. Money guarantees nothing. Poins does not trust them, the mysterious them who took Hal, nor their word, which they have not quite given. ‘If you want him back’ is not the start to a legally binding agreement, Poins is sure. He thinks back to a childhood of tricking his sister, and wording was just as important then. They can ask for more, keep pushing, or they could even decide that Hal has seen too much and kill him anyway, for safety. Poins leans back against the desk beside him, steadying himself at the thought. People are dispersing. They don’t care, not personally. Hal is a far-off figure, their boss’ boss, and though the company needs him, they don’t.

Poins trusts no one in that instant. He forgets about Hal’s siblings, working in the company or influencing those who do, and anybody who might help him. All he sees is Hal in danger.

He sends the video to his phone and scarpers once again. Ditching his jacket and tie in the lobby, he rushes down the street, into a cab, and eventually ends up outside an old, dodgy pub they used to frequent, one of Jack’s favourites. Jack would’ve been useful now, Poins thinks, with his shady poker acquaintances and devil-may-care attitude. Then again, that’s what got him killed, so maybe not.

Inside, Poins asks after a couple of names he remembers from years ago, to no avail. Even without the jacket and tie, he looks strangely dressed and out of place. Undercover police, they must assume. He tries a couple more places, even asking people on the street nearby, but it yields nothing. He should’ve dressed casually, put on his leather jacket and used the same smile that had found out where the best parties would be. Next, he ends up outside Minnie’s club, except now it has gone upmarket, offers fancy burgers and cocktails on a monochrome sign. It is early afternoon and the place is not open, but he goes round the side, being met with a locked security door rather than the easily broken into one he remembers from working there and, before that, when he and Hal would turn up before it opened. Working at the club should’ve given him contacts, but mostly he was too caught up in himself, in Hal being gone.

He bangs on the door, hoping Minnie is inside, or Doll, who works there as a manager now. Any other employee, and it might be difficult to explain why he is trying to break inside to ask for phone numbers, pubs to visit, anything that might help. He has no other way to track Hal, no contacts anywhere useful, not even some Hollywood hitherto undiscovered action skills. Only a temper that is rapidly rising and a lack of options. He hits the door with his fist again, harder.

Poins is not only knocking, now. He is letting out frustration. Hitting everyone who is not helping. Punching the fact that he cannot do anything more useful. Not even the money, which will come from the company, not from the joint account he mostly refuses to touch. The fact that they have contacted the company, are ransoming the company, makes it not personal, but to Poins, it is pretty fucking personal indeed. They have left him unable to protect Hal. He punches the door yet again, feeling something in his knuckle crack.

Then, just as he is about to kick the door and probably set off a variety of alarms, he hears the sound of a car pull up to the kerb at the mouth of the alley. He stops, but does not turn, waiting for the car to leave, preparing his excuse in case it doesn’t. Footsteps. He turns, blood still pumping, but before he can do anything, he has been grabbed and is being dragged towards the car, which he can just about make out is dark and big. Poins flails ineffectually, but it is pointless, and soon they reach the car. His big plan to take out his anger on a door has been scuppered, and there is nothing he can do but wait and see what happens.

 

-

 

‘Put your seatbelt on, idiot.’

Poins blinks. Beside him, Briony, his publicity department desk neighbour and friend, is looking down at her phone, tapping away at the keypad. In front sit two Lancaster King security guys, the ones who had dragged him into the car. They do not seem, at least from the back of their heads, phased by having to abduct an employee. He recognises the black car as one of the ones they keep for important meetings, at least partly Poins is certain so that nobody realises Hal cannot drive, keeping up the illusion of just wanting a chauffeur to get more done on the journey.

‘What’s going on?’

Briony looks up.

‘We’re stopping you do anything stupid.’

‘I wasn’t-’ he starts, but he’s not even convincing himself.

‘You were punching a door.’

‘Nobody was doing anything, I had to do something.’

‘Punching a door?’

Poins feels his temper, lowered by the shock, start to rise again.

‘Well nobody else was doing anything fucking use-’

‘Ed-’ Briony interjects.

‘-ful, who says they’ll even give him back-’

‘Ed,’ she says more loudly, and he shuts up. ‘If you’d let me talk?’ He nods, reluctantly. ‘Steven sent me after he realised you mightn’t know what’s going on. I mean, I didn’t, but he had to tell me to tell you-’

‘Briony, hurry the fuck up.’

‘They’re not paying up. They’re pretending to. There’s a whole plan in place, they’re just following Hal’s instructions, they have to pretend to gather the money for ransom.’

‘How will that even help?’ he says impatiently.

‘Because there’s a tracking chip in his watch.’ Poins stares in amazement. ‘It was activated not long after the first message, people are getting ready to go and rescue him, but the less people who know the actual plan, the better, apparently. Everyone thought you knew.’

Poins can’t speak. He knew Hal would’ve made a plan, he knew it, but his brain had never registered that it might be being enacted whilst he tried to formulate his own.

‘I didn’t,’ he says finally.

‘That’s apparent.’ She smirks. ‘Otherwise you mightn’t’ve been beating up inanimate objects for information.’

He glares at her, and looks out the window.

‘You’re taking me back to the office?’

‘Of course. There are clear instructions: “if Ed Poins seems like he might even consider doing anything rash, he’s not to be alone”. I’d say you’ve reached “rash”, wouldn’t you?’ Briony pauses and looks at him, emphasising her point. ‘It’s a real shame Philippa’s at uni, or we would’ve brought her in to enforce it.’

Poins growls in annoyance, but says nothing. He wants to punch someone who isn’t a door, and Hal would be quite high up on the list if he wasn’t still completely uncertain about the likelihood of Hal’s safe return. Leaving it to the police does not seem reliable. He needs to find a way to get to wherever Hal is.

Back at the Lancaster King offices, Poins is given a passing ‘do not leave the building under any circumstances’ from Steven as he rushes off to oversee the press statements being prepared, and is left to lurk. He gets away from Briony by saying he’s going to the toilet, then sneaks off further upstairs to where he’s more likely to find the people running the show. All he needs is a location. It takes until he’s on the floor containing the most senior offices that he remembers he knows all Hal’s passwords. Forgetting that he has access to most of Hal’s company and money is a usual occurrence. Around him, people are hurrying around, talking urgently. Poins wishes he’d picked the tie back up at least; soon, people will stare at his disheveled appearance and perhaps realise who he is, rather than walk past, preoccupied.

A spare computer. He enters not his own login, but Hal’s, and then logs into Hal’s email account. Sure enough, Hal has been copied into all the upper level emails about the kidnapping, as dictates company policy on top level group emails. If the circumstances were different, Poins would grin triumphantly to himself like a hacker in a film, but instead he settles for searching on Google Maps for the location given. It’s a bunch of warehouses south of the river, perhaps disappointingly stereotypical. Wasting no time, Poins decides to enact his escape of the building before there’s any chance someone from IT notices that Hal, supposedly kidnapped, has been logging onto the company network.

Back on the stairs, he tries to work out the best way to leave the building. Not the front, as security will have been warned, and he doesn’t want a repeat of the car episode. There’s a tiny garage under the building, but again, the exit is guarded by security. He’s about to question why he hasn’t learnt how to abseil down the side of buildings when he thinks of the back door, the one where they bring in food for the canteen and take out the rubbish. The office staff don’t have keys to that door, but Poins isn’t any old member of the office staff. He walks as quickly as he can down the stairs without attracting unnecessary attention, and makes his way through the maze of corridors to the back exit. Hal leaves through it sometimes, when he wants to sneak away without attention, and Poins usually makes jokes about going undercover.

The door is clear, so he sticks his key in and hurries out, checking for anyone who might report back to Steven and get him abducted by security guys again. Suitably free, he walks the familiar path to the nearest Tube station, glad to be back in the anonymity of the city after the offices where almost everyone knows his face and has the potential to look at him with awkward worry. Rushing to the rescue is hampered by the speed of the trains, hold ups as people stand in the way of the closing doors, but he’s doing his best (afterwards, as with many realisations about the day, he will remark to Hal that it would’ve been much more action hero if he’d remembered he has a Porsche at his disposal, but alas, he runs comically up the escalator instead).

Back outside, he runs down the streets he memorised from Google Maps. When he draws near, there is a van and a couple of police cars parked outside, one with a single officer sitting inside, and Poins wonders for a moment what the company had to do to get them to turn up so efficiently. His department’s done well, though: there’s no press that he can see, just a couple of bored looking officers waiting by the door to a warehouse. He strides over, unsure whether to go for the ‘I work for the company’ route or just to punch one of them and see what happens.

‘Let me in,’ he demands, going with neither option. The officers, one male and one female, look at each other and laugh. From inside the warehouse, Poins can hear shouting and banging, but he cannot distinguish any words.

‘Can’t do that,’ the man responds after they’ve finished laughing.

‘What’s going on?’ Poins is searching for a distraction, for any reason to get in. The place looks old and there’s probably another door somewhere, but it’s unlikely they’d let him just wander round to it and stroll in. He runs a hand through his hair and wishes, uncharacteristically, that he was Hal, and could sweet talk people with such skill and confidence.

‘We’re getting him out,’ the woman replies this time, calmly, in what is clearly her talking-to-the-public voice. ‘And you’re not going in.’

‘But I’m his-’ Poins starts, but then he hears people approaching from inside. The police shout to each other from either side of the door, but he does not process what they say. He is waiting, staring, but he knows that it is fine, he knows it before the doors open and suddenly more and more officers appear, one of whom is assisting Hal in walking.

‘Fuck.’

The sound slips from Poins’ lips unrealised. Hal is in front of him, alive, stumbling slightly, blood on his face and shirt that Poins cannot place yet, but alive, safe. No jacket or tie, of course not, Poins thinks as he starts to laugh, hysterically.

‘Of course you’re here,’ croaks Hal, but he’s grinning widely, brushing off the man helping him walk and within a few steps, throwing an arm around Poins’ shoulders like he always does.

‘Watch it, you’re getting blood on me,’ he replies, then pauses and looks more closely at Hal’s face. ‘Shit, Hal, we’ve got to take you to the hospital or something. That doesn’t look good.’

‘Hey, that’s my face you’re taking about.’

 

-

 

Hours and hours later, after stitches and Hal admitting he may have cracked ribs at the same point Poins admits he might have a cracked knuckle or two, and after Hal has given enough statements to the police and the company, they collapse onto their own sofa. Poins is fed up of waiting rooms and cheap coffee; it is midnight and dinner was pizza in the office whilst Hal insisted on going over everything that had been prepared for press questions and employee questions and basically any question that could ever be asked.

‘So, what actually happened?’ Poins asks, because he has heard snippets, versions for different people, but he knows Hal well enough to know even these will not add together to the exact story.

‘It was the bloody pastry’s fault.’ Poins raises his eyebrows. ‘I got out of the taxi at that little bakery round the corner, you know the usual one, and I’m walking down the street with my cinnamon thing, next thing I know, I’m being hit over the head and dragged into a van. And I’m just lying there on the floor of this van thinking “oh shit, I’ve been kidnapped”. It’s embarrassing.’

Poins sniggers.

‘Not very glamorous.’

‘Hey, stop laughing. As far as I recall, you somehow have cracked knuckles and you didn’t do anything but turn up at the end, using fucking public transport like you’re nipping to the shops.’

Poins scowls, regretting admitting to Hal how he’d got to him.

‘I got in a fight with a door.’

Hal splutters.

‘A door?’

‘Minnie Quickly’s side door, to be precise. That was before I found out you had some little plan you’d not deigned to tell me about, you twat.’

Hal looks down at his lap.

‘That was meant to protect you.’

‘From what?’

Hal looks back up.

‘Yourself. The danger. You were meant to stay put, do your job and not get tangled up in the rescue part. Everyone who knew the truth would assume you knew, you’d think they were paying up, it was so simple.’

‘No it wasn’t. You have a problem with making plans that are far too fucking complicated.’

‘It worked though, other than you pulling some wannabe Liam Neeson shit.’

‘Oh, the plan was that you end up with stitches in your cheek and enough bruises that your stomach looks like a fucking world map, was it?’

‘Sacrifices. I was kidnapped, not taken for ice cream.’

They stare at each other. Poins notices they’ve both raised their voices. This does not stop him going a shade louder, and higher in pitch too.

‘Sacrifices? I saw the file in your desk, Hal. The other way around, you’ve authorised the killing of half of London if I get as much as a scratch!’

Silence. Hal raises a hand and starts to fiddle with the tape on Poins’ knuckles.

‘I knew you’d find it.’

‘Why’d you leave it there then?’

‘I didn’t realise until today. I was waiting for hours, tied to a fucking chair like they only knew how to kidnap from the fucking movies, and I remembered it was in my drawer. And I knew you’d look there first, look for instructions, and…’

‘It makes you seem a bit crazy?’

‘You punched a door.’

‘Trying to get information on where you were.’

‘Point proven.’

Hal looks smug, and Poins is too tired to argue.

‘Please tell me you’re not going in to work tomorrow?’

‘Only for a bit, but I missed all of today-’

‘Because you were fucking kidnapped! That’s it, I’m kidnapping you, you’re not going in tomorrow, or I’ll leak to the press what happened when you tried to play blackjack in Vegas.’

‘You wouldn’t. You work for the publicity department.’

‘I would. Just imagine the fun I’d have writing it: “and then, after two more martinis, he tried to give himself a single syllable surname so that he could introduce himself like James Bond, and then…’

‘Fine, I’ll stay at home. As long as you stop punching doors.’

‘As long as you stop making plans so complicated they involve tracking devices in your fucking watch.’

‘Deal.’

 

-

 

The next morning, Philippa appears at the door. Poins is buttoning up his shirt, because ‘I’ve got to stop the company director from leaving his own home’ is not enough of an excuse for a sick day.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, yes, morning, glad you two aren’t dead.’ She barges her way in. ‘I’m here to make sure neither of you go to work today.’

‘Weren’t you in another city?’

He knows she was, because she’s a first year drama student at Manchester; he and Hal visited a few weeks ago so she could make them feel old, twenty-eight year olds sitting in student accommodation (until they won over her friends with anecdotes from their own time at university).

‘I got a call, last night, to come down here and babysit you two. It’s funny the things the company will pay for.’

On that note, she skips off to look in their fridge. Poins traipses off back to their bedroom, takes off his shirt and throws it at Hal’s half-awake face.

‘Philippa’s here.’

‘From Manchester?’ asks Hal fuzzily, pulling the shirt off his face.

‘Don’t ask. Just appreciate this kidnapper will let us stay here, and will only want takeaway food and our alcohol selection for her troubles.’

They look at each other, sharing a moment for the strangeness of that sentence, the shreds of truth under the joke, and then they laugh, full of relief, because it can be a joke now.


End file.
